On the first island, everyone likes everyone else’s joke equally. All still have equal status from each person’s perspective. Is there more status on that island than before?
On the second island, everyone dislikes everyone else’s joke equally. All still have equal status from each person’s perspective. Is there less status on that island than before?
My intuition is that status is meaningful relative to other people’s, so this is similar to the inflation of a currency. In all the ways that status can be used to get people to do things, there isn’t any more or less of it.
What happens when one person on the first island asks for help building a fire?
Whether or not the others help em depends on the temperature of the island. Like I said before, my intuition is that status is relative. If they do help em, ey gains some amount of status relative to them. If they don’t, ey loses a similar amount of status.
EDIT: The following is based on a misinterpretation of lessdazed.
Assuming you mean third island: The other people help em, and ey gains a bit of status in the process. Ey now has slightly more status than the others. The reverse happens on the fourth island.
My intuition is that status is meaningful relative to other people’s, so this is similar to the inflation of a currency. In all the ways that status can be used to get people to do things, there isn’t any more or less of it.
Whether or not the others help em depends on the temperature of the island. Like I said before, my intuition is that status is relative. If they do help em, ey gains some amount of status relative to them. If they don’t, ey loses a similar amount of status.
EDIT: The following is based on a misinterpretation of lessdazed.
Assuming you mean third island: The other people help em, and ey gains a bit of status in the process. Ey now has slightly more status than the others. The reverse happens on the fourth island.
I clarified the scenarios, they weren’t typos.