Not just “I think I can do this” but “I am knowingly asserting my status by claiming that I can do this.”
Well, this is the problematic part of this all. On one hand, it is true that almost everything we do has some impact on status, whether we are aware of it or not. And if you don’t see it, well, you are blind against something that exists and plays a very important role in human relationships. Bad things will start happening to you for unknown reasons.
On the other hand, if people evaluate everything merely by the optics of status (like, someone says “2+2=4” and the audience hears “hey, I am a high-status mathematician, start worshiping me, losers” and then they start throwing stones), then we are screwed, as a humanity. I mean, imagine that maybe there were hundreds of people who had the potential to cure cancer or invent immortality, but they decided not to, simply because it felt “inappropriate”. In other words, take your personal regrets and multiply them by 7 billions. Fuck!
In reality, it’s likely on a scale, like some people perceive the status aspect more strongly, some more weakly, and some not at all. This could be an important thing to research. Maybe you need to have some “bubbles” of people who don’t care or only care weakly about status, to have innovation happen; and if the same people are more homogenously spread among the population, the same innovation won’t happen, because each of them will be quickly down-regulated. Then, creating and protecting these “bubbles” could be a useful thing. (Am I now reaching above my status again? Who am I to propose a sociological research? I didn’t study sociology, and I don’t even have a PhD in anything.)
Yeah, all of those would make it better.
And to state the obvious, 2 of 3 have no impact on the writing itself.
For most people who aren’t already successful, it’s pretty difficult to substantially damage their reputation.
Yeah, the typical damage would be just slowing them down. Like, if you are in a strategic position in their planned path, you can block them.
I have described the hypothetical young author as too invulnerable. Let’s imagine instead that he published a few short stories online, they became popular, and now he wants to publish a book. If you are a publisher, you can reject him, even if you see that the book is great. (Assume an inbalance of power, where the publishers have many books to choose from, but the authors only have a few publishers to choose from.) If you are on friendly terms with other publishers in your region, you could ask them to do you a professional favor and put him on a blacklist (you could make up a story why). You can ignore him as a bookseller. If multiple people independently feel the same way, the author may find out that too many doors are closed for irrational reasons.
The author may be angry about this treatment. If he is not resilient psychologically, he may give up. But this is still not worse than not having tried at all.
Well, this is the problematic part of this all. On one hand, it is true that almost everything we do has some impact on status, whether we are aware of it or not. And if you don’t see it, well, you are blind against something that exists and plays a very important role in human relationships. Bad things will start happening to you for unknown reasons.
On the other hand, if people evaluate everything merely by the optics of status (like, someone says “2+2=4” and the audience hears “hey, I am a high-status mathematician, start worshiping me, losers” and then they start throwing stones), then we are screwed, as a humanity. I mean, imagine that maybe there were hundreds of people who had the potential to cure cancer or invent immortality, but they decided not to, simply because it felt “inappropriate”. In other words, take your personal regrets and multiply them by 7 billions. Fuck!
In reality, it’s likely on a scale, like some people perceive the status aspect more strongly, some more weakly, and some not at all. This could be an important thing to research. Maybe you need to have some “bubbles” of people who don’t care or only care weakly about status, to have innovation happen; and if the same people are more homogenously spread among the population, the same innovation won’t happen, because each of them will be quickly down-regulated. Then, creating and protecting these “bubbles” could be a useful thing. (Am I now reaching above my status again? Who am I to propose a sociological research? I didn’t study sociology, and I don’t even have a PhD in anything.)
And to state the obvious, 2 of 3 have no impact on the writing itself.
Yeah, the typical damage would be just slowing them down. Like, if you are in a strategic position in their planned path, you can block them.
I have described the hypothetical young author as too invulnerable. Let’s imagine instead that he published a few short stories online, they became popular, and now he wants to publish a book. If you are a publisher, you can reject him, even if you see that the book is great. (Assume an inbalance of power, where the publishers have many books to choose from, but the authors only have a few publishers to choose from.) If you are on friendly terms with other publishers in your region, you could ask them to do you a professional favor and put him on a blacklist (you could make up a story why). You can ignore him as a bookseller. If multiple people independently feel the same way, the author may find out that too many doors are closed for irrational reasons.
The author may be angry about this treatment. If he is not resilient psychologically, he may give up. But this is still not worse than not having tried at all.