Competence might get rewarded—or it might get you singled out and ostracised
That seems incorrect to me. Competence gets more valued as you live close to the edge. People will tolerate the charming incompetent less when eating depends on him getting it right.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Competence isn’t always used to get food. There are a lot of different skills and kinds of competence, and a lot of them might get you singled out.
It’s often the smartest kids in the class that become the target of bullies.
Also intelligence often tends to question the social norm, and that’s a recipe for getting singled out.
I should also note there’s a difference between competence rewarded, and incompetence punished. I suspect the second happens a lot more than the first.
One important difference is that “punish the outlier” is compatible with punishing notable incompetence and not compatible with rewarding the particularly competent. But this is pretty theoretical—there’s at least some evidence that primitive societies _DO_ honor as role models those who are expert (as long as they’re expert at conventional things).
Charm means the person has allies, and would be dangerous to cross. Competence might mean that they are likely to make a power play (see prestige vs dominance hierarchies).
There are hunter gatherers who punish those of low status who give away too much meat. Because these people are obviously trying to wow people and make a play at raising their status.
How sure are you that hunter-gatherers are much closer to the edge than the typical person in our society?
Very sure; compare death rates.
A better comparison might be people in cold / food-scarce vs warm / food-abundant areas.
Surely abundance of food is relative to population size?
Maybe we could try and estimate how objectively hard it is for certain groups to survive, and then try and work back to reward for competence from that?
That seems incorrect to me. Competence gets more valued as you live close to the edge. People will tolerate the charming incompetent less when eating depends on him getting it right.
I don’t think it’s that simple. Competence isn’t always used to get food. There are a lot of different skills and kinds of competence, and a lot of them might get you singled out.
It’s often the smartest kids in the class that become the target of bullies.
Also intelligence often tends to question the social norm, and that’s a recipe for getting singled out.
I should also note there’s a difference between competence rewarded, and incompetence punished. I suspect the second happens a lot more than the first.
One important difference is that “punish the outlier” is compatible with punishing notable incompetence and not compatible with rewarding the particularly competent. But this is pretty theoretical—there’s at least some evidence that primitive societies _DO_ honor as role models those who are expert (as long as they’re expert at conventional things).
See anti-social punishment here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/X5RyaEDHNq5qutSHK/anti-social-punishment—cooperators were punished for cooperating!
Charm means the person has allies, and would be dangerous to cross. Competence might mean that they are likely to make a power play (see prestige vs dominance hierarchies).
There are hunter gatherers who punish those of low status who give away too much meat. Because these people are obviously trying to wow people and make a play at raising their status.
How sure are you that hunter-gatherers are much closer to the edge than the typical person in our society?
A better comparison might be people in cold / food-scarce vs warm / food-abundant areas.
Very sure; compare death rates.
Surely abundance of food is relative to population size?
Maybe we could try and estimate how objectively hard it is for certain groups to survive, and then try and work back to reward for competence from that?