Some complain that I try to explain too much of human behavior via signaling. But the social brain hypothesis and common observations suggest that we quite often do things with an eye to how they will make us look to others.
In fact, apes seem plenty smart and dexterous enough to support a real Planet of the Apes scenario, wherein apes do many useful jobs.
brings to mind a pet peeve. People will say that there are no jobs that people with an IQ blow 75 can do. That seems so wrong to me. Good natured but not bright people can be very useful.
I think the point is that it's done privately, whereas publicly people are less willing to admit they submit to dominance. Just as people can publicly pretend they follow people due to prestige rather than dominance.
How is your reference to BDSM relevant to your point that people tend to resist being dominated? Evidently there are quite a few people who enjoy being dominated (or at least enjoy pretending to be dominated).
All of these examples are plausible, but the story they tell cumulatively is a very different story from the story suggested in "We Moderns Are Status-Drunk" (https://www.overcomingbias....
Modern humans accept a degree of domination that would be extremely unusual to our forager or even farmer ancestors, and even if that is prestige-mediated it still means that nearly all modern humans are constantly operating in a state where they are having their (relative) lack of prestige/status/dominance constantly highlighted. That's very hard to square with the idea that modern humans are acting like they are very *high* status, since a very high status human in the ancestral environment would also be a prestigious human and thus not be constantly interacting with higher-prestige humans.
https://amzn.to/3pU4Pi5 might be interesting.
OT but this:
In fact, apes seem plenty smart and dexterous enough to support a real Planet of the Apes scenario, wherein apes do many useful jobs.
brings to mind a pet peeve. People will say that there are no jobs that people with an IQ blow 75 can do. That seems so wrong to me. Good natured but not bright people can be very useful.
Statusful people should tolerate less, not more, domination.
I think the point is that it's done privately, whereas publicly people are less willing to admit they submit to dominance. Just as people can publicly pretend they follow people due to prestige rather than dominance.
How is your reference to BDSM relevant to your point that people tend to resist being dominated? Evidently there are quite a few people who enjoy being dominated (or at least enjoy pretending to be dominated).
Statusful people are no less status conscious nor less anxious about their status.
All of these examples are plausible, but the story they tell cumulatively is a very different story from the story suggested in "We Moderns Are Status-Drunk" (https://www.overcomingbias....
Modern humans accept a degree of domination that would be extremely unusual to our forager or even farmer ancestors, and even if that is prestige-mediated it still means that nearly all modern humans are constantly operating in a state where they are having their (relative) lack of prestige/status/dominance constantly highlighted. That's very hard to square with the idea that modern humans are acting like they are very *high* status, since a very high status human in the ancestral environment would also be a prestigious human and thus not be constantly interacting with higher-prestige humans.
You've given examples of the importance of status, but how does this show that it's neglected? Isn't status a commonly studied and discussed thing?
Cannot recommend too highly a comedy about the role of an off-stage boss - https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...Lars von Trier's Boss of it all
Are there any books, research that further covers role of status in society? 🙂