I don’t think that the thing Eliezer called “lack of status regulation emotions” that makes some people angry when they read how Harry in HPMOR interacts with teachers is what commonly called ego or lack of ego.
Fair enough. “Lack of status regulation emotions” is a bit more narrow, perhaps? Either way I see them as very similar concepts, and in the context of HPMOR readers’ anger especially so.
If someone who is high status lacks status regulation emotions they will be nice to a person with low status who seeks help from them and treats them as an equal.
That’s the opposite behavior of what’s commonly called having an ego.
More generally, someone who lacks status-regulating emotions won’t have a fragile, hypersensitive ego, i.e. what most people (though by no means all) usually mean by “having a massive ego” or an “ego problem”. Note that by this definition, many people whose self-esteem is founded in clear and verifiable achievements would be said to “lack status-regulating emotions”. In many circumstances, it’s not viewed as a negative trait.
I’ve had experience with what I think is the same thing that Eliezer called “lack of status regulation emotions”, and I do think it’s more than “narcissisticly big ego” and more than “unmotivated and unfortunate status blindness”.
It’s not that I couldn’t see the normal status levels. It’s just that I thought they were stupid and irrelevant (hah!) so I just went off my own internal status values. If you could back up your arguments, you had my respect. If you couldn’t and got defensive instead, you didn’t. And I wasn’t gonna pretend to respect someone just because everyone else thought I was out of line. Because.… well, they’re wrong. And I was totally unaware of this at the time because it was just baked into the background of how I saw things.
Good things did come of it, but I definitely stepped on toes, and in those cases it definitely came off like “big ego”.
And in a sense it was, just not in the straightforwardly narcissistic “I’m smarter than you so I don’t have to treat you with respect” way. Just in the “I’m smarter at the ‘not acting smarter than I am’ game, and that is why I don’t have to treat you with respect” way, which, although better, isn’t all that laudable either.
Ah, if the status regulation emotions go both ways, perhaps.
But Eliezer seemed to be referring to how people got angry at how Harry didn’t treat McGonagall in a manner befitting her higher status—this can be attributed to lack of status regulation emotions on the part of Harry, or Harry having a massive ego.
Harry also doesn’t have respect due to status regulation but that’s not enough to get someone reading the story angry. I personally found it quite funny. But then I also don’t put much value on that kind of status. It’s the kind of people with a strong status related emotions who get annoyed by the story.
If someone who is high status lacks status regulation emotions they will be nice to a person with low status who seeks help from them and treats them as an equal.
This is a nice differentiation that I can relate to well. I also do not seem to possess status regulating emotions either (at least enough to notice myself). And I do treat all people the same (mostly cheritable) independent of their status. Actually I discovered the concept of status quite late (Ayla and the Clan of the Cave Bear if I remember right) and couldn’t make sense of it for quite some time.
I don’t think that the thing Eliezer called “lack of status regulation emotions” that makes some people angry when they read how Harry in HPMOR interacts with teachers is what commonly called ego or lack of ego.
Fair enough. “Lack of status regulation emotions” is a bit more narrow, perhaps? Either way I see them as very similar concepts, and in the context of HPMOR readers’ anger especially so.
If someone who is high status lacks status regulation emotions they will be nice to a person with low status who seeks help from them and treats them as an equal.
That’s the opposite behavior of what’s commonly called having an ego.
More generally, someone who lacks status-regulating emotions won’t have a fragile, hypersensitive ego, i.e. what most people (though by no means all) usually mean by “having a massive ego” or an “ego problem”. Note that by this definition, many people whose self-esteem is founded in clear and verifiable achievements would be said to “lack status-regulating emotions”. In many circumstances, it’s not viewed as a negative trait.
I’ve had experience with what I think is the same thing that Eliezer called “lack of status regulation emotions”, and I do think it’s more than “narcissisticly big ego” and more than “unmotivated and unfortunate status blindness”.
It’s not that I couldn’t see the normal status levels. It’s just that I thought they were stupid and irrelevant (hah!) so I just went off my own internal status values. If you could back up your arguments, you had my respect. If you couldn’t and got defensive instead, you didn’t. And I wasn’t gonna pretend to respect someone just because everyone else thought I was out of line. Because.… well, they’re wrong. And I was totally unaware of this at the time because it was just baked into the background of how I saw things.
Good things did come of it, but I definitely stepped on toes, and in those cases it definitely came off like “big ego”.
And in a sense it was, just not in the straightforwardly narcissistic “I’m smarter than you so I don’t have to treat you with respect” way. Just in the “I’m smarter at the ‘not acting smarter than I am’ game, and that is why I don’t have to treat you with respect” way, which, although better, isn’t all that laudable either.
Ah, if the status regulation emotions go both ways, perhaps.
But Eliezer seemed to be referring to how people got angry at how Harry didn’t treat McGonagall in a manner befitting her higher status—this can be attributed to lack of status regulation emotions on the part of Harry, or Harry having a massive ego.
Harry also doesn’t have respect due to status regulation but that’s not enough to get someone reading the story angry. I personally found it quite funny. But then I also don’t put much value on that kind of status. It’s the kind of people with a strong status related emotions who get annoyed by the story.
This is a nice differentiation that I can relate to well. I also do not seem to possess status regulating emotions either (at least enough to notice myself). And I do treat all people the same (mostly cheritable) independent of their status. Actually I discovered the concept of status quite late (Ayla and the Clan of the Cave Bear if I remember right) and couldn’t make sense of it for quite some time.