The first half is part of my original model. Status only ever exists relative to a particular community.
Imagine the two islands, island 1 and island 2 came into contact; but the people of each island were extremely patriotic.
On island 1, the people of island 2 would be low status. BUT on island 2, the people of island 1 would be low status.
In the same way one can lose status in one community (ie. a church-based community) while gaining it in another (ie. the rationalist community) through a single action (ie. abandoning their past religious faith)
The second part (explaining how a zero-sum model can justify behaviour that isn’t LOCALLY zero-sum) is, quite simply, obvious to me; because it is so analogous to the zero-sum nature of energy in physics (energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but there are plenty of ways for you to get your hands on more of it)
The first half is part of my original model. Status only ever exists relative to a particular community.
Imagine the two islands, island 1 and island 2 came into contact; but the people of each island were extremely patriotic.
On island 1, the people of island 2 would be low status. BUT on island 2, the people of island 1 would be low status.
In the same way one can lose status in one community (ie. a church-based community) while gaining it in another (ie. the rationalist community) through a single action (ie. abandoning their past religious faith)
The second part (explaining how a zero-sum model can justify behaviour that isn’t LOCALLY zero-sum) is, quite simply, obvious to me; because it is so analogous to the zero-sum nature of energy in physics (energy can be neither created nor destroyed, but there are plenty of ways for you to get your hands on more of it)