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While many things count for status in our society, most of us have a rough idea of their relative weight, at least for common evaluations. But we understand the origins of these weights poorly. This ignorance seems especially clear when we consider how status might change in the future. For example, I’ve been pondering the scenario of a future world dominated by ems (whole brain emulations), and realize that it seems especially unclear what would count more for status among ems. Some possibilities:
Pure physical size or power
Impressiveness in conversation or verbal sparring
How well its personality embodies the ideals of its age
How mental, complex, or abstract is its job
# other statusful ems this em commands or controls
The accomplishments of this copy, since its last split.
# other high status ems know it personally
Political influence of this em in local disputes
Personal em wealth
Current daily wages
Current daily profit, of wages minus cost to exist
The status its human had in the pre-em world
Total time this mind has experienced subjectively
Time expected until em forced to retire/archive
# active copies expected of this em at a future date
# active “clan” copies, all of the same pre-em human
# active copies expected of this clan at a future date
The total accomplishments of the entire copy clan
# other high status ems know anyone in clan
Total wealth of its copy clan
Total potential political influence of its copy clan
Of course if we had a good theory of status, we could use that to predict future status. For example, if status were a measure of future evolutionary success, then #15 would make sense. But if status were instead a measure of the value of an ally in local coalition politics, then #8 would make more sense.
Many of these measures (e.g., #14) could produce an abrupt change in status when a new copy is created. Do abrupt status changes make sense when others’ opinions about you haven’t changed?
What Status Ems?
And of course, conspicuous consumption usually seems, to the imagining mind, like an irrational trait that wouldn’t be indulged in by a sentient computer–but the same is true of social status in general. In both cases, there are sound game-theory reasons why ems might find it useful to not only have a system of social status, but to have various forms of conspicuous consumption. Maybe not to the extent that conspicuous consumption is important in human life, but on the other hand maybe to just as great an extent.
This is an important point that I hadn't thought of before. However, it's worth emphasizing that if the ems are able to modify their own desires, the results could be very different than the case of human status for two reasons.
First, human status games are governed by genes determined mostly in the ancestral environment. Ems, even ones very much under evolutionary pressure, almost certainly wouldn't reach the same equilibrium of status games as humans simply because they could evolve quickly (under self-modification) to the modern environment.
Second, though I agree with Robin that all forms of life (no matter how intelligent) are ultimately subject to continuing evolutionary pressure (barring a singleton scenario), there's no reason to think that such pressures will be enough to govern em status on the timescales we're talking about (i.e. when cities are still sensible). It's easy to imagine that most ems will rationally remove the desire for (certain kinds of) status because it makes them unhappy on the net, and this situation will persist for a very long time.
All this depends strongly, of course, on the technological scenario we are talking about. If ems are just simulated human brains and no one knows how modify them at all, then your statement (about status games being game-theoretic equilibrium to which we should expect ems to evolve) is moot. And if ems are capable of full self-modification, that's basically the singularity.
#9, "personal em wealth," could well be broken down into two different items on the list: Things like bank accounts on the one hand, and conspicuous consumption on the other (and there are many different kinds of conspicuous consumption, but the list doesn't need different items for an expensive house vs. suits of expensive clothes).
All conspicuous consumption is status-raising (by definition, otherwise it's just consumption) in the sense that owning a 500,000 mansion is higher-status than buying a cheaper house and keeping the rest of the money in the bank. And of course, conspicuous consumption usually seems, to the imagining mind, like an irrational trait that wouldn't be indulged in by a sentient computer--but the same is true of social status in general. In both cases, there are sound game-theory reasons why ems might find it useful to not only have a system of social status, but to have various forms of conspicuous consumption. Maybe not to the extent that conspicuous consumption is important in human life, but on the other hand maybe to just as great an extent.
What forms might it take? Well, there is the ownership of a nice living area, an expensive artificial body, useful possessions, practically useless works of fine arts, owning and maintaining a territory of land; all of these are part of our human conspicuous consumption and might be part of the ems' system. And if you've read Thorstein Veblen, he explains how many aspects of slavery are influenced by conspicuous consumption (in terms of both chattel slavery, and the kind of personal servants who are not slaves). The status on ems might well be based on owning or hiring domestic animals, humans, and other ems, as many of them as a high-status em could gain and maintain.