What Roko keeps on saying—that women prefer high-status men—has a lot of truth to it, but there are countervailing considerations:
(1) [deleted for being an unimportant distraction]
(2) Men under 23 or so are given a pass: current income and current social status are not major considerations of most women contemplating a romance with a man under that age. Of course, it helps to seem to have prospects of high income or high social status, but most women are not particularly good judges of male prospects (and know that about themselves) and most men will be able to clear the prospects hurdle just by being a full-time college student or having a degree—and if that is not enough in the way of prospects for a particular woman, then having a father or even an uncle with high income or high social status will probably be.
(3) Since women who will go for a man under 23 or so typically place a lot of premium on high intelligence, if you are reading this web site, then unless you have some severe romantic handicap, if you make the usual level of effort to initiate romances when you are under 23 or so, there is a good chance that you find yourself in a romance with at least one woman who will want to stay with you for the rest or your life. (Roko is probably not interested in that: he probably wants to have romances with many, many women who scores as high as possible on the criterion most popular with men who want to have romances with many, many women. Hence his strong emphasis on social status.)
(4) Some women do not care much about income or social status. I have had two long-term relationships during a period in which I was chronically ill and my extremely-low income came entirely from Social Security disability payments plus in the case of relationship #2 federal housing subsidies. I was 27 when I started the first of these two relationships and 44 when I started the second. (Both of these women were very attracted to the fact that I was good at science, BTW. One hid the fact that my being good at science was an attractive property (I had to piece it together after we broke up) and even hid the correlated fact that she found science fiction inspiring, but then again I probably never brought sci fi up in conversation.)
(5) Among the women who care about your income and your position in society, most care about your level of social dominance more. The main determinants of social dominance are interpersonal skills that you can probably learn faster and with much less trouble than you can acquire high income or impressive position in society. To help with this learning, classes are available (e.g., in pickup, improvisation comedy (which is largely about status and dominance signalling) and the martial arts).
(6) On the subject of altruism and philanthropy specifically, being around a woman for long periods of time greatly increases your romantic chances with her. For this reason, one of the people who blog about pickup (Roissy I think) advises men to choose work in which attractive women outnumber men. Most kinds of philanthropy are like that. (I attended BIL PIL 2009 (BIL for the medical industry), and there were a striking number of beautful, intelligent, very inspiring women there (half of whom were in philanthropic organizations) -- and one of them seemed willing to continue talking to me as long as I wanted to talk, knowing about me only that I was attending BIL PIL 2009 and that I had an interest (not a career, just an interest, expressed by me with a sense of confidence in my abilities) in the application of computer-science research to philanthropy.)
Men under 23 or so are given a pass: current income and current social status are not major considerations of most women contemplating a romance with a man under that age.
Roko is using “status” in a much broader sense than income or job status. I think he is mainly addressing status in interpersonal interactions within the particular social milieu a man is in, e.g. who asserts themselves over who, who defers to who, etc… These sorts of status hierarchies start in childhood.
If someone believes that their social circles don’t have hierarchies, then think again. Even nice, egalitarian social circles have hierarchies; they are just subtle. For an example, if you and your friends are going out to dinner, who decides where? If there is a disagreement about what restaurant, who decides? Which lone group members are able to sway the entire group towards their preferences, and which can’t? When the bill comes, someone suggests dividing it equally even though some people ordered less expensive dishes. Can those group members assert that the bill should be divided differently?
None of the answers to these questions necessarily “prove” a particular ranking among every group of friends (for instance, some people just don’t like making decisions regardless of status; in some groups, the high status people might make these decisions, while in others, the high status people might push the decision work onto the lower status people.) Yet these are the kind of situations that can reveal subtle dominance battles.
if you and your friends are going out to dinner, who decides where? If there is a disagreement about what restaurant, who decides? Which lone group members are able to sway the entire group towards their preferences, and which can’t? When the bill comes, someone suggests dividing it equally even though some people ordered less expensive dishes. Can those group members assert that the bill should be divided differently?
When I am out with a single friend, or sometimes two, I tend to pick where we go unless I don’t want to (due to not knowing what’s available), break ties, successfully arrange to split appetizers I don’t want to eat by myself, and either pay for my own often-cheaper food or not pay at all.
This is because under these circumstances, I typically have Schellingesque limits on myself. I’m a vegetarian with certain strong food preferences beyond that which limit where I can and will eat, and will tend to stay home rather than go somewhere I can’t eat. I’m very frugal with my money, and will tend to stay home rather than enter a situation where I have to pay for dinner out (or any more than what I deliberately choose to pay for after looking at the prices). To get me to go to a restaurant involves picking one I expect to enjoy more than whatever I would cook for myself at home and buying me food there. I’m fairly difficult to take to dinner, actually, but people keep doing it anyway; I guess it’s too much of a cultural staple to discard.
I don’t think this is due to status, though, as I don’t have nearly the same group-swaying power if I go out with several friends, even when individually each of them would do as I pleased restaurant-wise one-on-one. I can sometimes still get someone to pay my way, but if and only if I am clearly the guest of just one person. (I can get my date to pay for me even on a double date; when I was staying with a friend over a summer and the deal was that she bought my food she paid for restaurant meals too even if we ate with a larger bunch of people.) I don’t always just stay home when a large group organizes a meal out because in that case I feel antisocial and whiny, and even when I do stay home, this lacks the ability to sway large groups (I think they think “she just didn’t feel like coming” instead of “we have not adequately satisfied her preferences and should work harder at it because we are her friends who should be able to have dinner at a restaurant with her”).
Edit: Sometimes a single person takes it upon him or herself to pay for everybody in a largeish group. I’m never this person, and have never in my memory been left out of such a collective payment. Paying for everybody seems to me like a high-status move.
tl;dr: I have complicated restaurant preferences and can get them met with individuals but not always groups.
The problem with these conversations is that everyone is permanently stuck in signalling mode, so the conversation inevitably becomes about the fairy-tale land of human self-propaganda.
so, there is a good chance that you find yourself in a romance with a least one woman who will want to stay with you for the rest or your life. (Roko is probably not interested in that: he probably wants to have romances with many, many women who scores as high as possible on the criterion most popular with men
In far mode, most men will say they want a woman who will “stay with them forever”, committed relationship, etc etc etc. For the reality, see this comic, especially the last panel.
The problem with these conversations is that everyone is permanently stuck in signalling mode, so the conversation inevitably becomes about the fairy-tale land of human self-propaganda.
...
For the reality, see this comic, especially the last panel.
The comic is drawn from the same fairyland, and citing fictional evidence is just more propaganda.
Speaking of being stuck in signalling mode, what else is this: “I know it’s going to get downvoted (but I am a sucker for telling the truth)”?
Perhaps drawn from a different fairy-land, namely that of a sort of cynical sarcasm.
To see the reality of things, you have to actually go out into the world and meet real people, and see the things that they actually do, the lives that they actually live.
What Roko keeps on saying—that women prefer high-status men—has a lot of truth to it, but there are countervailing considerations:
(1) [deleted for being an unimportant distraction]
(2) Men under 23 or so are given a pass: current income and current social status are not major considerations of most women contemplating a romance with a man under that age. Of course, it helps to seem to have prospects of high income or high social status, but most women are not particularly good judges of male prospects (and know that about themselves) and most men will be able to clear the prospects hurdle just by being a full-time college student or having a degree—and if that is not enough in the way of prospects for a particular woman, then having a father or even an uncle with high income or high social status will probably be.
(3) Since women who will go for a man under 23 or so typically place a lot of premium on high intelligence, if you are reading this web site, then unless you have some severe romantic handicap, if you make the usual level of effort to initiate romances when you are under 23 or so, there is a good chance that you find yourself in a romance with at least one woman who will want to stay with you for the rest or your life. (Roko is probably not interested in that: he probably wants to have romances with many, many women who scores as high as possible on the criterion most popular with men who want to have romances with many, many women. Hence his strong emphasis on social status.)
(4) Some women do not care much about income or social status. I have had two long-term relationships during a period in which I was chronically ill and my extremely-low income came entirely from Social Security disability payments plus in the case of relationship #2 federal housing subsidies. I was 27 when I started the first of these two relationships and 44 when I started the second. (Both of these women were very attracted to the fact that I was good at science, BTW. One hid the fact that my being good at science was an attractive property (I had to piece it together after we broke up) and even hid the correlated fact that she found science fiction inspiring, but then again I probably never brought sci fi up in conversation.)
(5) Among the women who care about your income and your position in society, most care about your level of social dominance more. The main determinants of social dominance are interpersonal skills that you can probably learn faster and with much less trouble than you can acquire high income or impressive position in society. To help with this learning, classes are available (e.g., in pickup, improvisation comedy (which is largely about status and dominance signalling) and the martial arts).
(6) On the subject of altruism and philanthropy specifically, being around a woman for long periods of time greatly increases your romantic chances with her. For this reason, one of the people who blog about pickup (Roissy I think) advises men to choose work in which attractive women outnumber men. Most kinds of philanthropy are like that. (I attended BIL PIL 2009 (BIL for the medical industry), and there were a striking number of beautful, intelligent, very inspiring women there (half of whom were in philanthropic organizations) -- and one of them seemed willing to continue talking to me as long as I wanted to talk, knowing about me only that I was attending BIL PIL 2009 and that I had an interest (not a career, just an interest, expressed by me with a sense of confidence in my abilities) in the application of computer-science research to philanthropy.)
Roko is using “status” in a much broader sense than income or job status. I think he is mainly addressing status in interpersonal interactions within the particular social milieu a man is in, e.g. who asserts themselves over who, who defers to who, etc… These sorts of status hierarchies start in childhood.
If someone believes that their social circles don’t have hierarchies, then think again. Even nice, egalitarian social circles have hierarchies; they are just subtle. For an example, if you and your friends are going out to dinner, who decides where? If there is a disagreement about what restaurant, who decides? Which lone group members are able to sway the entire group towards their preferences, and which can’t? When the bill comes, someone suggests dividing it equally even though some people ordered less expensive dishes. Can those group members assert that the bill should be divided differently?
None of the answers to these questions necessarily “prove” a particular ranking among every group of friends (for instance, some people just don’t like making decisions regardless of status; in some groups, the high status people might make these decisions, while in others, the high status people might push the decision work onto the lower status people.) Yet these are the kind of situations that can reveal subtle dominance battles.
When I am out with a single friend, or sometimes two, I tend to pick where we go unless I don’t want to (due to not knowing what’s available), break ties, successfully arrange to split appetizers I don’t want to eat by myself, and either pay for my own often-cheaper food or not pay at all.
This is because under these circumstances, I typically have Schellingesque limits on myself. I’m a vegetarian with certain strong food preferences beyond that which limit where I can and will eat, and will tend to stay home rather than go somewhere I can’t eat. I’m very frugal with my money, and will tend to stay home rather than enter a situation where I have to pay for dinner out (or any more than what I deliberately choose to pay for after looking at the prices). To get me to go to a restaurant involves picking one I expect to enjoy more than whatever I would cook for myself at home and buying me food there. I’m fairly difficult to take to dinner, actually, but people keep doing it anyway; I guess it’s too much of a cultural staple to discard.
I don’t think this is due to status, though, as I don’t have nearly the same group-swaying power if I go out with several friends, even when individually each of them would do as I pleased restaurant-wise one-on-one. I can sometimes still get someone to pay my way, but if and only if I am clearly the guest of just one person. (I can get my date to pay for me even on a double date; when I was staying with a friend over a summer and the deal was that she bought my food she paid for restaurant meals too even if we ate with a larger bunch of people.) I don’t always just stay home when a large group organizes a meal out because in that case I feel antisocial and whiny, and even when I do stay home, this lacks the ability to sway large groups (I think they think “she just didn’t feel like coming” instead of “we have not adequately satisfied her preferences and should work harder at it because we are her friends who should be able to have dinner at a restaurant with her”).
Edit: Sometimes a single person takes it upon him or herself to pay for everybody in a largeish group. I’m never this person, and have never in my memory been left out of such a collective payment. Paying for everybody seems to me like a high-status move.
tl;dr: I have complicated restaurant preferences and can get them met with individuals but not always groups.
The problem with these conversations is that everyone is permanently stuck in signalling mode, so the conversation inevitably becomes about the fairy-tale land of human self-propaganda.
In far mode, most men will say they want a woman who will “stay with them forever”, committed relationship, etc etc etc. For the reality, see this comic, especially the last panel.
The comic is drawn from the same fairyland, and citing fictional evidence is just more propaganda.
Speaking of being stuck in signalling mode, what else is this: “I know it’s going to get downvoted (but I am a sucker for telling the truth)”?
Perhaps drawn from a different fairy-land, namely that of a sort of cynical sarcasm.
To see the reality of things, you have to actually go out into the world and meet real people, and see the things that they actually do, the lives that they actually live.
I prefer to describe it as “loser shit”.
I was going to critique this, but this is a rationality site, so the critique would be too far off-topic.