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Leo Abstract's avatar

This is brilliant as always and thought provoking. I had never before considered that not having accountability is itself a status symbol but now I cannot unsee it.

As for the point about bosses projecting prestige as a way of laundering dominance, I'm honestly not sure that either you or Simler has understood Henrich. The argument isn't that we admire people from whom we are attempting to directly learn useful things, but rather that we evolved in an environment where we couldn't tell what we needed to learn from successful people and therefore had to emulate them overall as closely as possible. How would I know if our tribe's most successful hunter is successful because of his face paint or in spite of it? All I know is that he is doing well and I will try to do everything just the way he does, which involves watching him very closely. This strategy is entirely unconscious and and is now baked into our brains in a way that results in us wanting to emulate Michael Jordan's choice of undergarments enough for him to drive Hanes sales.

Mutatis mutandis, our boss is obviously doing something right, or he wouldn't be our boss, and if we pay attention to him, It is because of an unconscious desire to become successful as well. Of course, if we know that he only has his position because of nepotism or corruption or perverse incentive structures that reward psychopathy, perhaps we will be disgusted by him rather than admire him. And then, of course, only dominance remains.

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Misha Saul's avatar

100% just want my leaders to be hot also

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