much of human motivation is curiosity and self-actualization
And status? I recall when my kid was having trouble learning to crawl, we showed him a toy baby that could crawl by itself, and he really hated it, bawling when he saw it start to crawl and then afterwards whenever he saw it. (Granted there could be other explanations for this behavior besides “status”. We ended up helping to make the learning easier by putting him on a slight decline, which worked very well.)
We run races, climb mountains, compose ballads, peer through telescopes. These things don’t put food on one’s table, a shirt on one’s back, or a roof over one’s head. That’s not why we do them. We do them in order to be fully human and fully alive.
I notice that all of these can be explained by status seeking as well. (At least on the individual level. I guess there’s still the question of why we award status for these particular things.)
It makes sense that these would be intertwined. Humans evolved to utilize our intelligence to find and make use of new opportunities; people who do this successfully bring more value to the family / tribe; so naturally we would evolve to find successful curious behavior (i.e. courage, adventure, etc) high-status in others, at the same time as intrinsically desirable in ourselves.
And status? I recall when my kid was having trouble learning to crawl, we showed him a toy baby that could crawl by itself, and he really hated it, bawling when he saw it start to crawl and then afterwards whenever he saw it. (Granted there could be other explanations for this behavior besides “status”. We ended up helping to make the learning easier by putting him on a slight decline, which worked very well.)
I notice that all of these can be explained by status seeking as well. (At least on the individual level. I guess there’s still the question of why we award status for these particular things.)
It makes sense that these would be intertwined. Humans evolved to utilize our intelligence to find and make use of new opportunities; people who do this successfully bring more value to the family / tribe; so naturally we would evolve to find successful curious behavior (i.e. courage, adventure, etc) high-status in others, at the same time as intrinsically desirable in ourselves.