High Social Status

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...not everyone.

Article:
https://www.yahoo.com/health/the-one-th ... 62677.html

...interesting.

It sounds like abuse of statistics to me, to say "everyone."

Still, mostly everyone, probably.

The logical implication of that headline is that I and I'm guessing a good chunk of the folks here at WP don't actually exist. Ain't that something.

I think most of us want it, to the extent that we understand it. We just don't necessarily want it enough to do what it takes to have it, at least in the short run.

Um yeah, the article is trying to frame it almost as a biological need when in fact it's a societally induced problem. Truth is modern society runs on social status, not hard work status, smart status, or any other type of status; therefore social status is the only path to the top of the hierarchical pyramid.

Also, I could give a s**t about social status. I've seen social status promote morons over competent employees and get cheats/morons elected to government posts-- neither of those tend to end well, but like dumb apes society decides to keep with that approach. If society determines the hierarchy is based on social skills so be it, but I strongly disagree because there are numerous other approaches that yield better fruit. Society can keep the homo and I'll take the sapien.

I do want people to get along with others and be treated with respect, but I think having a ton of friends would be too overwhelming for me. I wouldn't really have much time to myself and it would be exhausting for me too. All the friends I would have probably wouldn't all be genuine either. I also don't really care about having power over others. If anything I would probably feel guilty to dominate someone against their will. I just don't understand how it makes people feel so good to treat others like they are inferior. It seems like social status just causes problems than anything and doesn't have much point to it. I mean, it doesn't really help with accomplishing anything. People like me probably wouldn't have to go through so much suffering from bullying either if social status wasn't so important. It mostly just seems like an excuse to be mean to innocent people.

That sounds like self-abnegation. If you don't intend to treat people badly, and actually want to help them achieve what will make them happy, then by achieving high social status you would do the world a favor. Better they willingly do what you want (good for them) than do what psychopaths with high social status want (bad for them).

Also, overwhelmed? Higher social status gives you more freedom to choose how and when to interact, not less. In reality, simply choosing how and when to interact will give you higher social status, provided you have something to offer that other people want (and you know it).

I don't care for social status. For example, I recently went to a snooty high-end make up department wearing a wig which exactly matched my real hair, which I put on backwards. I combed it to blend in with my real hair at the sides. The result was I looked pretty much like Cousin It from The Adams family:

http://thejessew.com/2014/08/20/the-hol ... ly-spirit/

Then I stuck a pair of sunglasses on and tried to purchase make up from this fashionable looking sales lady. I kept her busy showing me different colours and brand names for about an hour, then told her I had some vague kind of "follicle disorder" and couldn't wear make up anyway so I wouldn't be buying anything.

If I had cared for my social status and wanted anyone to admire me, approve of me or emulate me, I would never have done it.

Exactly

"Status is defined as respect or admiration, voluntary deference (people willingly listening to you), and social value (possessing characteristics that others want to emulate)"

Did no one else read this sentence?

I mean, if someone is not very sociable and are by themselves most of the time then it's not as likely that they would be very popular. I think most of the time you have to make an effort to be at least somewhat extroverted to have a high social status don't you?I see some of people (not all) that are willing to bully others to try to gain their social status. I just don't think it's worth it to do something like that because being mean to others would make me feel guilty for a long time.

Last edited by slw1990 on 08 May 2015, 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well you read it at least. But your description of all this screams 'teenage rebellion' which is totally mired in social status. If what you'd done wasn't a clear social faux-pas, you wouldn't have done it.

Actually I am 45 years old, and I did it because I find s**t funny. I'm not rebelling against anyone or anything. I was merely amusing myself. But yeah, I read your post. I didn't say anything about it because it seemed to me to be self-evident.

And the person who later mentioned you have to have some amount of socializing to become at all popular, I agree. And a lot of socializing and posturing is lying, too. I hate lying and liars so I am clearly uninterested in attempting to be popular or hanging around with people who lied to be popular, or pretty much that entire segment of the population who are often admired.

I don't think you have to do what other people want to achieve social status, exactly. Not doing really offensive things helps, though. The kind of social status that comes from abusing other people doesn't last. I guess it does if you can become a dictator, but that doesn't apply to most of us. Lots of people achieve high social status by cultivating skills that lots of other people find useful.

People think being mean gives social status. I think that misses the point. Experiment for yourself, but I think that intellect, genuine interest, and strength of conviction has given me long-term social status, and I intend to keep building on that. Seriously, I don't care about the hatred of a bunch of haters. Other people with long-term social status give me respect. If you want to call me mean for not giving in to manipulation, okay. I'll call you naive for giving in to manipulation, and pretending to care about things you don't really care about. No one gets to demand things from me by threatening to call me mean if I won't give them what they want.

The pitfall, for me anyway, comes from my anger. The times when I've unleashed my righteous rage have definitely hurt me, and probably hurt other people who didn't deserve it. Not caring helps with that, too! Let other people be wrong. Move on, and focus on what interests you.

Positions from hard work and intelligence? No way! The psychopaths would never stand for it because it would require too much effort to cheat and manipulate a system like that.
It's much easier to just brainwash everyone into a more dynamic and abstract structure of thought.






I made a part of that statement bold because it's a key to the spread of the hive-mind.
The current system of memetics provides incentives on multiple levels for other brains in the environment to become more efficient copying machines.

A collection of self-assembling memes acts like a key to unlock chemical rewards in the brain.

There's several problems with the article, semantics to mention one.
Abuse of the timeline as another, as in it's not occurring from now on but it's a established rule, the uselesser a job the more you earn, think advertising as one example or white collar vs blue.
Media is not about informing, anymore, if it ever was, but spreading judgemental opinions, in the thinkline of social-media, the like vs likenot's, it's not about knowledge or insight, but emotions - the drowning of reason in the pool of sentiment.
On another leaf I would say psychology-magazines; that's a outlet of social-engeneering. (pharmaceutical s-e too)