I wish wanting attention weren’t treated as if it were so disgusting. I grew up hearing “Don’t listen to him. He just wants *attention*” with contempt in the speakers’ voices.
This kind of thing always makes me think of one of the basic models in Elephant in the Brain. People advocate for policies/norms that benefit them individually when adopted by the group, yet individually they seek to get away with breaking those same norms, typically by lying to themselves that they’re doing so.
In this case, many (most?) people want attention, yet try to reduce the competition by creating a norm that you shouldn’t seek it, all the while attempting to seek attention with plausible deniability. (Goes generally for “status” too.) This acts a strong penalty on those who lack the skill to seek attention surreptitiously or ever feel the desire so strongly that they admit it to themselves. Although it also possibly has the real benefit that people aren’t openly and constantly making bids for you attention left and right.
I also think that current anti-attention asking norms came from Elephant in the brain esque anti-competition norms (the extreme version of everyone always being approved to ask for attention seems makes me think of dystopian future advertising, where the front of my house is plastered in adds).
Also agreeing with Benito that 1v1 long term relationship is a scenario I don’t want people to be penalized when asking for attention.
I agree there’s something to that. But the quote sounds to me like the sort of thing I hear said about a child in a 1-1 interaction with their parent, which shouldn’t be considered a vice across the board. There are times most days of a person’s life where they will feel a healthy desire for the attention of someone they have a long-term relationship with and that should not be met with “and this desire is intrinsically bad”.
Just to be clear, I had no intention of implying it was a vice across the board. I actually don’t think it’s a vice at all to want attention, though some methods of seeking it can be bad. Many attempts aren’t bad and yet are punished (my comment was offering a model for why).
This kind of thing always makes me think of one of the basic models in Elephant in the Brain. People advocate for policies/norms that benefit them individually when adopted by the group, yet individually they seek to get away with breaking those same norms, typically by lying to themselves that they’re doing so.
In this case, many (most?) people want attention, yet try to reduce the competition by creating a norm that you shouldn’t seek it, all the while attempting to seek attention with plausible deniability. (Goes generally for “status” too.) This acts a strong penalty on those who lack the skill to seek attention surreptitiously or ever feel the desire so strongly that they admit it to themselves. Although it also possibly has the real benefit that people aren’t openly and constantly making bids for you attention left and right.
I also think that current anti-attention asking norms came from Elephant in the brain esque anti-competition norms (the extreme version of everyone always being approved to ask for attention seems makes me think of dystopian future advertising, where the front of my house is plastered in adds). Also agreeing with Benito that 1v1 long term relationship is a scenario I don’t want people to be penalized when asking for attention.
I agree there’s something to that. But the quote sounds to me like the sort of thing I hear said about a child in a 1-1 interaction with their parent, which shouldn’t be considered a vice across the board. There are times most days of a person’s life where they will feel a healthy desire for the attention of someone they have a long-term relationship with and that should not be met with “and this desire is intrinsically bad”.
Just to be clear, I had no intention of implying it was a vice across the board. I actually don’t think it’s a vice at all to want attention, though some methods of seeking it can be bad. Many attempts aren’t bad and yet are punished (my comment was offering a model for why).