Eh… but people like rock stars even though most people are NOT rock stars. People like people with really good looks even though most people don’t have good looks. And most people do have some sort of halo effect on wealthy people they actually meet, if not “the 1%” as a class.
I am not sure that a person who has no desire for status will write a post about how they have no desire for status that much more often than someone who does desire status. Particularly if this “desire” can be stronger or weaker. So it could be:
A- The person really doesn’t seek status and wants to express this fact for a non-status reason.
B- The person does seek status but doesn’t self identify as someone who seeks status, and wants to express this fact for a non-status reason.
C- The person does seek status but doesn’t self identify as someone who seeks status, and wants to express that they do not seek status on the gamble that being seen as a person who does not want status will heighten their status.
D- The person does seek status and is gambling that being seen as a person who does not want status will heighten their status.
A has the advantage of simplicity, but its advantage is roughly on par with that of D. B is more complicated and C is more complicated, but not that much more as far as human ideas seem to run. And the set of all “status seekers” who would write such a post is {B, C, D}, and I’d say that the probability of that set is higher than the probability of A.
So all things being equal, I’d say that P(E|~H)>P(E|H). Which may still not lead to the right answer here. Now, if saying “I don’t seek status” was definitely a status losing behavior, I’d say that would shift things drastically as it would render {B, C, D} as improbable on more than bare simplicity. But I really don’t have a good evaluation for that, so I’d have to run on just the simplicity alone.
Y’know, that reply (of mine) misses the point: Read this thread, and pay attention to the voting. Most every comment of mine is a 0 or a 1 karma post. There’s lots of 5-10 karma posts in this thread.
If I value status to the point that I’m willing to lie, why am I so bad at it? :)
Well, effectiveness and desire are two different things.
That aside, you could be posting for desires that are non-status related and still desire status. Human beings are certainly capable of wanting more than one thing at a time. So even if this post was motivated by some non-status related desire, that fact would not, in and of itself, be evidence that you don’t desire status.
I’m not actually suggesting you update for you: you have a great deal more access to the information present inside your head than I do. I don’t even have an evidence-based argument: merely a parsimony based one, which is weak at best. I wouldn’t think of suggesting it unless I had some broader evidence that people who claim “I don’t desire status” really do. I have no such evidence.
The original post was why the argument “This post is evidence that I do not seek status” is unconvincing. I was merely pointing out that even if we use your version of E, it isn’t very good evidence for H. (Barring some data to change that, of course.)
Can we agree that “being different” can be both dangerous or beneficial? I’ve been raised with the idea that my brand of different, in general, is dangerous for me (threatened with expulsion from school, numerous threats of violence until I learned to shut up about some topics), so my prior is that any abnormal behaviour of mine is more likely dangerous than beneficial.
As to the rest, I think we’ll just have to disagree—you’re making a good point from an external standpoint, but nothing that would really prompt ME to update (for one thing, I like to think I’m smart and socially skilled enough to pull vastly more than a +10 on a post if I just wanted status :))
Eh… but people like rock stars even though most people are NOT rock stars. People like people with really good looks even though most people don’t have good looks. And most people do have some sort of halo effect on wealthy people they actually meet, if not “the 1%” as a class.
I am not sure that a person who has no desire for status will write a post about how they have no desire for status that much more often than someone who does desire status. Particularly if this “desire” can be stronger or weaker. So it could be:
A- The person really doesn’t seek status and wants to express this fact for a non-status reason. B- The person does seek status but doesn’t self identify as someone who seeks status, and wants to express this fact for a non-status reason. C- The person does seek status but doesn’t self identify as someone who seeks status, and wants to express that they do not seek status on the gamble that being seen as a person who does not want status will heighten their status. D- The person does seek status and is gambling that being seen as a person who does not want status will heighten their status.
A has the advantage of simplicity, but its advantage is roughly on par with that of D. B is more complicated and C is more complicated, but not that much more as far as human ideas seem to run. And the set of all “status seekers” who would write such a post is {B, C, D}, and I’d say that the probability of that set is higher than the probability of A.
So all things being equal, I’d say that P(E|~H)>P(E|H). Which may still not lead to the right answer here. Now, if saying “I don’t seek status” was definitely a status losing behavior, I’d say that would shift things drastically as it would render {B, C, D} as improbable on more than bare simplicity. But I really don’t have a good evaluation for that, so I’d have to run on just the simplicity alone.
Y’know, that reply (of mine) misses the point: Read this thread, and pay attention to the voting. Most every comment of mine is a 0 or a 1 karma post. There’s lots of 5-10 karma posts in this thread.
If I value status to the point that I’m willing to lie, why am I so bad at it? :)
Well, effectiveness and desire are two different things.
That aside, you could be posting for desires that are non-status related and still desire status. Human beings are certainly capable of wanting more than one thing at a time. So even if this post was motivated by some non-status related desire, that fact would not, in and of itself, be evidence that you don’t desire status.
I’m not actually suggesting you update for you: you have a great deal more access to the information present inside your head than I do. I don’t even have an evidence-based argument: merely a parsimony based one, which is weak at best. I wouldn’t think of suggesting it unless I had some broader evidence that people who claim “I don’t desire status” really do. I have no such evidence.
The original post was why the argument “This post is evidence that I do not seek status” is unconvincing. I was merely pointing out that even if we use your version of E, it isn’t very good evidence for H. (Barring some data to change that, of course.)
In a vacuum, and assuming a perfectly spherical point, I think we agree :)
Can we agree that “being different” can be both dangerous or beneficial? I’ve been raised with the idea that my brand of different, in general, is dangerous for me (threatened with expulsion from school, numerous threats of violence until I learned to shut up about some topics), so my prior is that any abnormal behaviour of mine is more likely dangerous than beneficial.
As to the rest, I think we’ll just have to disagree—you’re making a good point from an external standpoint, but nothing that would really prompt ME to update (for one thing, I like to think I’m smart and socially skilled enough to pull vastly more than a +10 on a post if I just wanted status :))