My sense is that increasing the amount of time and attention that we pay to status and related dynamics is extremely negative; I don’t expect it to help and I think that issues related to these situations get significantly much worse when people are consciously targeting them.
The torture allotted to the Danaids in the classical underworld, that of attempting to fill sieves with water, is the symbol not of one vice, but of all vices. It is the very mark of a perverse desire that it seeks what is not to be had. The desire to be inside the invisible line illustrates this rule. As long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. You are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. Until you conquer the fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain.
This is surely very clear when you come to think of it. If you want to be made free of a certain circle for some wholesome reason—if, say, you want to join a musical society because you really like music—then there is a possibility of satisfaction. You may find yourself playing in a quartet and you may enjoy it. But if all you want is to be in the know, your pleasure will be short lived. The circle cannot have from within the charm it had from outside. By the very act of admitting you it has lost its magic.
And later:
The quest of the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. But if you break it, a surprising result will follow. If in your working hours you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. You will be one of the sound craftsmen, and other sound craftsmen will know it. This group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. It will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the profession as a whole against the public: nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. But it will do those things which that profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which that profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain.
This is essentially my view. I do not think it is generally productive to concern yourself with being In or High-Status or Getting Invited to the Right Parties or Being Talked About; I think it is productive to focus on the work that actually builds and contributes to the project, and let the parties and invitations and all that come as they may (or may not).
There’s a possibility for corruption here, as I briefly mentioned, if people get so deprived that they will sacrifice their other needs or values for the sake of status alone.
I considered that to be obvious in writing this. I’m not necessarily talking about the problem of getting status regardless of everything else. I’m also not talking about how to get status as an individual. I’m rather talking about getting the whole community a sense of status while keeping our other values intact.
“Focus on creating value” might be a great individual solution if you’re talented enough. People recognize you’re not goodharting as much and they’re promoting you accordingly. But it doesn’t help everyone. It doesn’t scale. If it works for you that just means you’ve been able to win these competitions so far. Good for you.
As for the collective version: judging from the fact that we’ve taken some meaningful progress with this at LW Netherlands, there’s clearly more traction to be made.
There’s a possibility for corruption here, as I briefly mentioned, if people get so deprived that they will sacrifice their other needs or values for the sake of status alone.
I considered that to be obvious in writing this. I’m not necessarily talking about the problem of getting status regardless of everything else. I’m also not talking about how to get status as an individual. I’m rather talking about getting the whole community a sense of status while keeping our other values intact.
Yes, I think giving the community a “sense of status” has substantial risks of exacerbating the corruption that I mentioned earlier. In other words, I think recognizing achievements is nice, but making that recognition too systematic leads to significantly increased gaming of that system, Goodharting, etc.
“Focus on creating value” might be a great individual solution if you’re talented enough. People recognize you’re not goodharting as much and they’re promoting you accordingly. But it doesn’t help everyone. It doesn’t scale. If it works for you that just means you’ve been able to win these competitions so far. Good for you.
This...seem like a very zero-sum perspective on value creation? Like, you’re tracking the zero-sum social credit assigned through recognition of the value creation but not the value creation itself.
Here’s a non-zero-sum perspective. People have intrinsic wants/needs, which are partially instinctive. Creating value consists of creating and distributing things that meet these wants/needs (material goods, information, communication protocols, environments, interactions, etc), and in reducing barriers to needs-satisfaction such as coercion. By this definition value creation is inherently scalable (the more of it happens, the more needs are met), and non-zero-sum. Status isn’t an intrinsic need, it’s a zero-sum social frame that acts as a Schelling point governing distribution of valuable things and coercion, and it confuses people into thinking that they intrinsically want it when they actually want some of those valuable things that it governs and also to be coerced less.
My sense is that increasing the amount of time and attention that we pay to status and related dynamics is extremely negative; I don’t expect it to help and I think that issues related to these situations get significantly much worse when people are consciously targeting them.
As C.S. Lewis said in his excellent talk “The Inner Ring”:
And later:
This is essentially my view. I do not think it is generally productive to concern yourself with being In or High-Status or Getting Invited to the Right Parties or Being Talked About; I think it is productive to focus on the work that actually builds and contributes to the project, and let the parties and invitations and all that come as they may (or may not).
There’s a possibility for corruption here, as I briefly mentioned, if people get so deprived that they will sacrifice their other needs or values for the sake of status alone.
I considered that to be obvious in writing this. I’m not necessarily talking about the problem of getting status regardless of everything else. I’m also not talking about how to get status as an individual. I’m rather talking about getting the whole community a sense of status while keeping our other values intact.
“Focus on creating value” might be a great individual solution if you’re talented enough. People recognize you’re not goodharting as much and they’re promoting you accordingly. But it doesn’t help everyone. It doesn’t scale. If it works for you that just means you’ve been able to win these competitions so far. Good for you.
As for the collective version: judging from the fact that we’ve taken some meaningful progress with this at LW Netherlands, there’s clearly more traction to be made.
Yes, I think giving the community a “sense of status” has substantial risks of exacerbating the corruption that I mentioned earlier. In other words, I think recognizing achievements is nice, but making that recognition too systematic leads to significantly increased gaming of that system, Goodharting, etc.
This...seem like a very zero-sum perspective on value creation? Like, you’re tracking the zero-sum social credit assigned through recognition of the value creation but not the value creation itself.
Here’s a non-zero-sum perspective. People have intrinsic wants/needs, which are partially instinctive. Creating value consists of creating and distributing things that meet these wants/needs (material goods, information, communication protocols, environments, interactions, etc), and in reducing barriers to needs-satisfaction such as coercion. By this definition value creation is inherently scalable (the more of it happens, the more needs are met), and non-zero-sum. Status isn’t an intrinsic need, it’s a zero-sum social frame that acts as a Schelling point governing distribution of valuable things and coercion, and it confuses people into thinking that they intrinsically want it when they actually want some of those valuable things that it governs and also to be coerced less.