Firstly, I’m with you on your model of status and the availability of perceived opportunity for additional status in a hyper-connected world is really interesting.
Where I have a big disagreement is in the lesson to take from this. Your argument is that we should essentially try to turn off status as a motivator. I would suggest it would be wiser to try to better align status motivations with the things we actually value.
I struggle hugely with akrasia. If I didn’t have some external motivation then I’d probably just lie in bed all day watching tv. I don’t know if I’m unusually susceptible to this but my impression is that this is a fairly common problem, even if to a lesser extent in some.
One of my solutions to this is to deliberately do things for the sake of status. Rather, I look for opportunities where me getting more status aligns with me doing things which I think are good.
As an example, take karma on LessWrong. This isn’t completely analogous to status but every time I get karma I feel a little (or sometimes big!) boost of self-worth. If writing on LessWrong is aligned with my values then this is a good thing. If you add in a cash prize from someone respected in the community then my status circuit is triggered significantly to motivate me to write an answer even if the actual size of the cash prize doesn’t justify the amount of time put in! [1] I could try to fight against this and not allow status triggers but I don’t think that would actually improve my self-actualisation.
In a non LW context, if status in the eyes of my family is important, I won’t just spend my time watching tv but will also spend time playing with my kids. I would play with my kids anyway as I know it’s the right thing to do and is fun but on those occasions where tv is more appealing, listening to my status motivation can help me do the right thing while expending less will-power. [2]
On a practical level I’m not sure that trying to ban status motivations is practical. As you point out a status high is readily achievable elsewhere so if opportunities for status are banned within one community then this would just subconsciously motivate me to look elsewhere.
[1] This isn’t a complaint!
[2] I am aware that confessing to this in most places would be seen as a huge social faux pas, I’m hoping LW will be more understanding.
I am aware that confessing to this in most places would be seen as a huge social faux pas, I’m hoping LW will be more understanding.
You’re good. You’re just confessing something that is true for most of us anyway.
Where I have a big disagreement is in the lesson to take from this. Your argument is that we should essentially try to turn off status as a motivator. I would suggest it would be wiser to try to better align status motivations with the things we actually value.
Up to a point. It is certainly true that status motivations have led to great things, and I’m personally also someone who is highly status-driven but manages to mostly align that drive with at least neutral things, but there’s more.
I struggle hugely with akrasia. If I didn’t have some external motivation then I’d probably just lie in bed all day watching tv.
The other great humanist psychologist besides Maslow was Adam Rogers. His thinking can be seen as an expansion on this “subagent motivation is perceived opportunity” idea. He proposed an ideal vs an actual self. The ideal self is what you imagine you could and should be. Your actual self is what you imagine you are. The difference between ideal self and actual self, he said, was the cause of suffering. I believe that Buddhism backs this up too.
I’d like to expand on that and say that the difference between ideal self (which seems like a broader class of things that includes perceived opportunity but also social standards, the conditions you’re used to, biological hardwiring, etc) and your actual self is the thing that activates your subagents. The bigger the difference, the more your subagents are activated by this difference.
Furthermore, the level of activation of your subagents causes cognitive dissonance (a.k.a. akrasia), i.e. one or multiple of your subagents not getting what they want even though they’re activated.
And THAT is my slightly-more-gears-level model of where suffering comes from.
So here’s what I think is actually going on with you: you’re torn between multiple motivations until the status subagent comes along and pulls you out of your deadlock because it’s stronger than everything else. So now there’s less cognitive dissonance and you’re happy that this status incentive came along. It cut your gordian knot. However, I think it’s also possible to resolve this dissonance in a more constructive way. I.e. untie the knot. In some sense the status incentive pushes you into a local optimum.
I realise that I’m probably hard to follow. There’s too much to unpack here. I should probably try and write a sequence.
I think that’s a good explanation. I agree that the solution to Akrasia I describe is kind of hacked together and is far from ideal. If you have a better solution to this I would be very interested and it would change my attitude to status significantly. I suspect that this is the largest inferential gap you would have to cross to get your point across to me, although as I mentioned I’m not sure how central I am as an example.
I’m not sure suffering is the correct frame here—I don’t really feel like Akrasia causes me to suffer. If I give in then I feel a bit disappointed with myself but the agent which wants me to be a better person isn’t very emotional (which I think is part of the problem). Again there may be an inferential gap here.
“I have trouble getting myself doing the right thing, focusing on what selfish reasons I have to do it helps.” sounds entirely socially reasonable to me. Maybe that’s just because we here believe that picking and choosing what x=selfish arguments to listen to is not aligned with x=selfishness.
Firstly, I’m with you on your model of status and the availability of perceived opportunity for additional status in a hyper-connected world is really interesting.
Where I have a big disagreement is in the lesson to take from this. Your argument is that we should essentially try to turn off status as a motivator. I would suggest it would be wiser to try to better align status motivations with the things we actually value.
I struggle hugely with akrasia. If I didn’t have some external motivation then I’d probably just lie in bed all day watching tv. I don’t know if I’m unusually susceptible to this but my impression is that this is a fairly common problem, even if to a lesser extent in some.
One of my solutions to this is to deliberately do things for the sake of status. Rather, I look for opportunities where me getting more status aligns with me doing things which I think are good.
As an example, take karma on LessWrong. This isn’t completely analogous to status but every time I get karma I feel a little (or sometimes big!) boost of self-worth. If writing on LessWrong is aligned with my values then this is a good thing. If you add in a cash prize from someone respected in the community then my status circuit is triggered significantly to motivate me to write an answer even if the actual size of the cash prize doesn’t justify the amount of time put in! [1] I could try to fight against this and not allow status triggers but I don’t think that would actually improve my self-actualisation.
In a non LW context, if status in the eyes of my family is important, I won’t just spend my time watching tv but will also spend time playing with my kids. I would play with my kids anyway as I know it’s the right thing to do and is fun but on those occasions where tv is more appealing, listening to my status motivation can help me do the right thing while expending less will-power. [2]
On a practical level I’m not sure that trying to ban status motivations is practical. As you point out a status high is readily achievable elsewhere so if opportunities for status are banned within one community then this would just subconsciously motivate me to look elsewhere.
[1] This isn’t a complaint!
[2] I am aware that confessing to this in most places would be seen as a huge social faux pas, I’m hoping LW will be more understanding.
You’re good. You’re just confessing something that is true for most of us anyway.
Up to a point. It is certainly true that status motivations have led to great things, and I’m personally also someone who is highly status-driven but manages to mostly align that drive with at least neutral things, but there’s more.
The other great humanist psychologist besides Maslow was Adam Rogers. His thinking can be seen as an expansion on this “subagent motivation is perceived opportunity” idea. He proposed an ideal vs an actual self. The ideal self is what you imagine you could and should be. Your actual self is what you imagine you are. The difference between ideal self and actual self, he said, was the cause of suffering. I believe that Buddhism backs this up too.
I’d like to expand on that and say that the difference between ideal self (which seems like a broader class of things that includes perceived opportunity but also social standards, the conditions you’re used to, biological hardwiring, etc) and your actual self is the thing that activates your subagents. The bigger the difference, the more your subagents are activated by this difference.
Furthermore, the level of activation of your subagents causes cognitive dissonance (a.k.a. akrasia), i.e. one or multiple of your subagents not getting what they want even though they’re activated.
And THAT is my slightly-more-gears-level model of where suffering comes from.
So here’s what I think is actually going on with you: you’re torn between multiple motivations until the status subagent comes along and pulls you out of your deadlock because it’s stronger than everything else. So now there’s less cognitive dissonance and you’re happy that this status incentive came along. It cut your gordian knot. However, I think it’s also possible to resolve this dissonance in a more constructive way. I.e. untie the knot. In some sense the status incentive pushes you into a local optimum.
I realise that I’m probably hard to follow. There’s too much to unpack here. I should probably try and write a sequence.
I think that’s a good explanation. I agree that the solution to Akrasia I describe is kind of hacked together and is far from ideal. If you have a better solution to this I would be very interested and it would change my attitude to status significantly. I suspect that this is the largest inferential gap you would have to cross to get your point across to me, although as I mentioned I’m not sure how central I am as an example.
I’m not sure suffering is the correct frame here—I don’t really feel like Akrasia causes me to suffer. If I give in then I feel a bit disappointed with myself but the agent which wants me to be a better person isn’t very emotional (which I think is part of the problem). Again there may be an inferential gap here.
“I have trouble getting myself doing the right thing, focusing on what selfish reasons I have to do it helps.” sounds entirely socially reasonable to me. Maybe that’s just because we here believe that picking and choosing what x=selfish arguments to listen to is not aligned with x=selfishness.
This is a beautifully succinct way of phrasing it. I still have enough deontologist in me to feel a little dirty every time I do it though!