Fighting (in the sense of arguing loudly, as well as showing physical strength or using it) seems to be bad the vast majority of time.
When is fighting good? When does fighting lead you to Win TDT style (which instances of input should trigger the fighting instinct and payoff well?)
There is an SSA argument to be made for fighting in that taller people are stronger, stronger people are dominant, and bigger skulls correlate with intelligence. But it seems to me that this factor alone is far, far away from being sufficient justification for fighting, given the possible consequences.
If everyone agrees about how power is distributed fighting is unnecessary.
Surely it’s in nearly everyone’s interest to have more power distributed to themselves!
But fighting to get more power may have positive utility for oneself, it usually has negative utility for others, so it’s in everybody’s interest that everybody agrees to not fighting for more power. This agreement can take the form of alternative ways of getting power (elections, money), or making power less important to one’s happiness (the rule of law).
But fighting to get more power may have positive utility for oneself, it usually has negative utility for others, so it’s in everybody’s interest that everybody agrees to not fighting for more power.
If you don’t have enough power to win a fight fighting is also negative utility for yourself. If everyone predicts that you would win a fight, you usually don’t actually have to fight it to get what you want.
Fighting has a huge signalling component: when viewed in isolation, a fight might be trivially, obviously, a net negative for both participants. However, either or both! participants might in the future win more concessions for their willingness to fight alone than the loss of the fight. As humans are adaption executers, a certain willingness to fight, to seek revenge, etc. is pretty common. At least, this seems to be the dominant theory and sensible to me.
When is fighting good? When does fighting lead you to Win TDT style (which instances of input should trigger the fighting instinct and payoff well?)
Or even just CDT style. Human interaction is approximately an iterated prisoners dilemma without a fixed duration. Reputation concerns are sufficient to account for most of the (perceived and actual) benefit among humans. Then more can be attributed to ethical inhibitions on the ‘pride’ ethic.
Fighting makes a lot more sense in a tribe or in small groups/individuals of humans than it does now. A big argument with someone now will very rarely keep you from starving and will probably never get you a child. On the other, showing dominance in a situation where the women around you are choosing a mate out of 5 guys, will get you a lot more laid.
I haven’t seen people who can get laid frequently getting into dominance disputes/fights.
There is a distinction between dominance which is assertive and aversive, and prestige, which is recognized and non-aversive.
Guys like Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt have prestige which gets them (potentially) laid.
Women have more reason to be be attracted to a man if he is universally recognized to be awesome, than if he is all the time showing his power through small agonistic interactions with other people—males and females.
If Cesar had been universally prestigious instead of agonistically powerful, Brutus wouldn’t have reason to kill him leaving an unassisted widow and children.
I haven’t seen people who can get laid frequently getting into dominance disputes/fights.
I agree with your central point but I think this claim is something of an overstatement (since I don’t wish to accuse you of being sheltered). Crudely speaking it tends to be sexier to win without fighting than to fight and win but fighting (social status battles) and winning is still more than sufficiently sexy.
I also note that it is hard to become the kind of person who does not need to engage in any dominance disputes and still maintain high social status without in engaging in many dominance disputes on the way. To a certain extend the process can be munchkined since much of the record of who is dominant is stored in the individual but some actual dominance disputes will still be inevitable.
Yes, also keep in mind that human cognition related to hierarchies of prestige and dominance is flexible enough that it may be worth more to step up in a different hierarchy than try to save yourself in this one by agonistic dispute. We don’t have the problem of being “stuck” with the same group forever, which facilitates a lot.
First, for modern humans fighting is not the only method of achieving higher status. There are other ways, too. Guys like Keanu Reeves are examples of successfully using the other methods. If you are a movie superstar, you don’t have to fight with people to be recognized.
Second, even the fighters don’t fight all the time. This is precisely why social animals have pecking order—cached results of the previous fights. If you won against someone yesterday, most likely he will not challenge you today; therefore you can be today admired as peaceful. The more clear was your victory, the longer time will pass until someone dares to challenge you again. Therefore, if someone is obviously stronger that all his competitors, he will actually fight very rarely. It’s like the first place is “does not have to fight because no one dares to fight him”, second place is “fights and wins”, third place is “fights and loses”, and the last place is “too afraid to fight”. Also, often the real fight is avoided if both parties agree on their estimate of who would win. (Analogically: a policeman has a gun, but he uses the gun very rarely. The mere presence of the gun, and the knowledge that he would use it if necessary, causes the psychological effect.)
So the best case is to be seen as so poweful that everyone else just gives up. Then you can be dominant and peaceful. But if you don’t have the real fighting power, sooner or later someone will call your bluff. (In case of Keanu Reeves, his power is social. If you try to go and kick him, his fans wil come to his defense, and his lawyers will destroy you. Your power is not just your individual, but also all those people who would come to fight for you.)
Fighting (in the sense of arguing loudly, as well as showing physical strength or using it) seems to be bad the vast majority of time.
When is fighting good? When does fighting lead you to Win TDT style (which instances of input should trigger the fighting instinct and payoff well?)
There is an SSA argument to be made for fighting in that taller people are stronger, stronger people are dominant, and bigger skulls correlate with intelligence. But it seems to me that this factor alone is far, far away from being sufficient justification for fighting, given the possible consequences.
If everyone agrees about how power is distributed fighting is unnecessary.
Fighting can be necessary when another person claims to have power that they actually don’t have.
Surely it’s in nearly everyone’s interest to have more power distributed to themselves!
But fighting to get more power may have positive utility for oneself, it usually has negative utility for others, so it’s in everybody’s interest that everybody agrees to not fighting for more power. This agreement can take the form of alternative ways of getting power (elections, money), or making power less important to one’s happiness (the rule of law).
If you don’t have enough power to win a fight fighting is also negative utility for yourself. If everyone predicts that you would win a fight, you usually don’t actually have to fight it to get what you want.
Fighting has a huge signalling component: when viewed in isolation, a fight might be trivially, obviously, a net negative for both participants. However, either or both! participants might in the future win more concessions for their willingness to fight alone than the loss of the fight. As humans are adaption executers, a certain willingness to fight, to seek revenge, etc. is pretty common. At least, this seems to be the dominant theory and sensible to me.
Or even just CDT style. Human interaction is approximately an iterated prisoners dilemma without a fixed duration. Reputation concerns are sufficient to account for most of the (perceived and actual) benefit among humans. Then more can be attributed to ethical inhibitions on the ‘pride’ ethic.
Fighting makes a lot more sense in a tribe or in small groups/individuals of humans than it does now. A big argument with someone now will very rarely keep you from starving and will probably never get you a child. On the other, showing dominance in a situation where the women around you are choosing a mate out of 5 guys, will get you a lot more laid.
I haven’t seen people who can get laid frequently getting into dominance disputes/fights.
There is a distinction between dominance which is assertive and aversive, and prestige, which is recognized and non-aversive.
Guys like Keanu Reeves, Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt have prestige which gets them (potentially) laid.
Women have more reason to be be attracted to a man if he is universally recognized to be awesome, than if he is all the time showing his power through small agonistic interactions with other people—males and females.
If Cesar had been universally prestigious instead of agonistically powerful, Brutus wouldn’t have reason to kill him leaving an unassisted widow and children.
I agree with your central point but I think this claim is something of an overstatement (since I don’t wish to accuse you of being sheltered). Crudely speaking it tends to be sexier to win without fighting than to fight and win but fighting (social status battles) and winning is still more than sufficiently sexy.
I also note that it is hard to become the kind of person who does not need to engage in any dominance disputes and still maintain high social status without in engaging in many dominance disputes on the way. To a certain extend the process can be munchkined since much of the record of who is dominant is stored in the individual but some actual dominance disputes will still be inevitable.
Yes, also keep in mind that human cognition related to hierarchies of prestige and dominance is flexible enough that it may be worth more to step up in a different hierarchy than try to save yourself in this one by agonistic dispute. We don’t have the problem of being “stuck” with the same group forever, which facilitates a lot.
First, for modern humans fighting is not the only method of achieving higher status. There are other ways, too. Guys like Keanu Reeves are examples of successfully using the other methods. If you are a movie superstar, you don’t have to fight with people to be recognized.
Second, even the fighters don’t fight all the time. This is precisely why social animals have pecking order—cached results of the previous fights. If you won against someone yesterday, most likely he will not challenge you today; therefore you can be today admired as peaceful. The more clear was your victory, the longer time will pass until someone dares to challenge you again. Therefore, if someone is obviously stronger that all his competitors, he will actually fight very rarely. It’s like the first place is “does not have to fight because no one dares to fight him”, second place is “fights and wins”, third place is “fights and loses”, and the last place is “too afraid to fight”. Also, often the real fight is avoided if both parties agree on their estimate of who would win. (Analogically: a policeman has a gun, but he uses the gun very rarely. The mere presence of the gun, and the knowledge that he would use it if necessary, causes the psychological effect.)
So the best case is to be seen as so poweful that everyone else just gives up. Then you can be dominant and peaceful. But if you don’t have the real fighting power, sooner or later someone will call your bluff. (In case of Keanu Reeves, his power is social. If you try to go and kick him, his fans wil come to his defense, and his lawyers will destroy you. Your power is not just your individual, but also all those people who would come to fight for you.)
To put it crudely, alpha males very rarely get into dominance fights because part of being an alpha male is being acknowledged as an alpha male.
Betas and gammas status-fight more often since their position on the ladder is less stable.
A large part of having status is not having to constantly prove it.