Suggest edit — Competing Status Hierarchies

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title: "Competing Status Hierarchies"
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# Competing Status Hierarchies

Category: [[status|Status]]

[Read the original document](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KrZAHeXMXoTmDw2qW_zWCFxz4kTEyDTZqF_WVhyeT5k/edit?usp=sharing&sa=D&ust=1596495076415000&usg=AOvVaw14eO-_rVu5vVwLNXXeTvJv)

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Status hierarchies vying for memetic dominance….

There’s a question of what the ordering over status hierarchies is.
Is it higher to be a doctor or a professor? A researcher or a software engineer?
Is it higher to become CEO of a fortune 500 company, or to become a senator? Is all of politics low status, minus becoming president or sitting on the supreme court?

Within fields, it’s easy to watch status flow from one subfield to another, leaving a bitterness in the wake of lost status and a resentment which can turn into infighting.

Who are the heroes that kids take, growing up? Labron James or Jordan Peterson? Kim Kardashian or Michelle Obama? The pursuit of an ideal creates a value system that reinforces itself, as skills and knowledge is built up that’s specific to the pursuit of that ideal.

There’s a world of difference between the kids who grow up worshiping Elon Musk and the kids who grow up worshiping Kanye.

The tech status hierarchy and the finance status hierarchy.
The internalized status of finance and consulting in ivy league schools. And the systematic modification of the values of students in those schools.
These kids come in not having a concept of consulting. And via competition between one another to get access to firms whose status is money centric, they’re compelled to invest deeply into being validated by these elite firms. The quality of their firm is the quality of their person.

It’s interesting when a kid’s conception of status gets more and more niche.

Growing up I saw Tom Brady. I saw Eminem. I saw Ender. I saw Artemis.

There were no intellectual heroes because I didn’t read non-fiction, or have a clear concept of the value of scientific progress. I read orson scott card and j. K. Rowling, but they weren’t heroes so much as I wanted their art to exist without them. I wanted her to be dead when it was finished, so as to not corrupt something that was much more important than her.

Who is higher status? Demis Hassabis or Jeff Dean? These distinctions matter deeply to me, and are insanely niche.

Eric Weinstein or Joe Rogan? Worlds apart to me, but alas.
Peter Thiel or Steven Pinker?
All from the same world of intellectuals, people who think just for the fun of it. Just to enjoy the experience of felt understanding, of creativity and hypothesis.

People. Events. Ideas. This was the hierarchy. The obvious criticism of this frame from status is to leave people behind, and to embrace the status of ideas. And just like that, we’re welcomed into a new hierarchy.

High status idea: Representation Learning.
Low status idea: Logical rule systems.

Take the rise of Behavioral Economics. The rise of Game Theory. The lending of the emotional power of technical rigor to unrigorous domains.

Notes
* In italy there’s no distinction made between an IT person and a software engineer, and so all computer work is low status
   * Silvio Burlesconi is looked up to and so women in Italy care deeply about becoming attractive

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*Source: [Original Google Doc](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KrZAHeXMXoTmDw2qW_zWCFxz4kTEyDTZqF_WVhyeT5k/edit?usp=sharing&sa=D&ust=1596495076415000&usg=AOvVaw14eO-_rVu5vVwLNXXeTvJv)*