Unas cuantas perlas recientes de Robin Hanson, algo más que un economista, en Overcoming Bias.
Siendo honestos sobre el status:
We rarely need to consciously try to achieve status; usually the details of our desire for creative expression (etc.) are already designed to achieve status. For example, if you have a great opportunity to express yourself creativity, you may start to pursue it. But if you then learn that no one else will ever hear of your expression, you may find you simply lose interest in that expression. Similarly if you learn that this expression will be considered out of fashion. (...)
First, our desires have a lot of details, and it is no easy task to expunge them of all trace of status seeking. A few changes might fool a casual, but not a careful, observer. Second, as we approach an ideal status-free desire, we may well find that it just doesn’t seem very, well, desirable. Why try that hard to avoid the appearance of extremely subtle clues of status seeking that hardly anyone would notice? The honest, but ugly, approach is to admit we vigorously seek status, even via our charity, and will surely continue to do so. “I give via GiveWell to show I’m caring, but not like those gullible ignoramus airhead losers.”
El ascenso de China y el status de Occidente:
The world has emulated Western policies mainly because those nations were high status, not because their style of law or government was obviously more efficient. Chinese styles are likely similarly efficient, and if China becomes higher status, the world will emulate it instead.
Por qué leemos a los clásicos?:
[T]he main reason most people read famous thinkers is to raise their status via affiliation, and to prepare to signal how knowledgeable they are. And yes reading old thinkers can, like travel, help you explore alien cultures. But what if you actually wanted to learn about the subjects on which famous old people wrote?
It seems to me that if a famous old thinker were actually the best person to read today on some subject, then humanity just couldn’t be accumulating much insight on that topic. (...) Am I just relearning what hundreds have already relearned century after century, but were just not able to pass on?
Most wives are offended to see their husbands make a direct pass at another woman in front of them. They mind less if he seems unconsciously attracted to a woman, but does not consciously act on that attraction. A wife might mind her husband buying a sports car if his conscious intention was to attract other women for short term sex, but mind less if his main conscious reason was to race. These things depend on how conscious and deliberate are his efforts to attract other women. Now consider this: It seems men are eager to visibly help heroically and financially, and to spend on visible status symbols, mainly to seek promiscuous short-term sex! Data.
So what would happen if we all became conscious of the above behaviors being strong clues that men are in fact actively trying for promiscuous short term sex? Would such behaviors reduce, would long term relations become less exclusive, or what? Maybe we just couldn’t admit that these are strong clues?
(HT: Patrissimo)
