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COMMENT PAGE FOR:
The Moat of Low Status
jhanschoo wrote 18 hours 32 min ago:
A caveat that practice itself without reflection or deliberation does
not necessarily lead to better outcomes. The author gives the example
of poker, but a frequent poker player without knowledge of theory and
without sufficient skepticism of optimality can easily learn suboptimal
strategy.
Similarly, learning a sport (which must be done by practice and
alongside conditioning towards the sport) without a good coach is risky
with respect to safety and with respect to failing to learn the right
thing.
andy99 wrote 23 hours 31 min ago:
There's some survivorship bias here. You often just end up looking like
an idiot or being really bad at something. I agree that embarrassment
shouldn't be a barrier but one should be aware of the flip side.
"Putting yourself out there" mostly results in humiliation and
rejection. Focusing on being thick skinned and resilient is maybe more
important than imagining you just need to get over embarrassment.
If you try new things, you may go bankrupt, get laughed at or be
humiliated in a much worse way, be regularly rejected or talked down
to, etc. It's not just about being brave for a minute. And in the end
you might never make it.
weatherlite wrote 16 hours 33 min ago:
I agree but I think many of us are paralyzed even in the face of tiny
risks or even imaginary ones.
I have an idea for a 20 hour solo software project and besides the
usual resistance of sitting there and getting it done, one of the
barriers is the thought "what if people don't use it much" or what if
"my wife doesn't get what I did it" and stuff like that. These are
quite paralyzing feelings that are not really rational, I stand to
gain more than I stand to lose by doing this project, and yet my mind
has settled on the risk being about as high as the reward.
You could say this is just me but I think many many people are like
that.
exolymph wrote 20 hours 49 min ago:
I appreciate this. Risk is real! It's still worth taking risks, but
the chance of failure is not imaginary.
intellectronica wrote 1 day ago:
A few extra tricks that worked for me (you can alternate depending on
what fits best in the moment):
- Embrace the role of imposter. Instead of whining about imposter
syndrome, accept a-priori that you are an imposter. The game is to
survive as long as possible as an imposter in a world full of naturals.
You lose not when you are made out, but when you give up.
- Embrace being a useless git. You're an idiot, you have no talent
whatsoever, you don't have the skill yet, and there's no hope you'll
ever acquire it. So, no pressure, you're only playing. Anything beyond
failing completely is a bonus.
- Commit to "open to goal". You are starting today and you'll go on for
as long as it takes. Possibly until you die. There's no deadline and no
expected speed. You're just being stubborn and refuse to stop trying
even in the face of evidence that you have no chance.
- Be delusional about "the hack". You are special and you've discovered
a hack that makes it easier and faster for you to acquire the new skill
and apply it successfully than it is for most people. All you have to
do is go through the motions, "the hack" will take care of things.
- Fight injustice. You are _entitled_ to have this skill and the
success it affords people, it is your god-given, inalienable right. But
the world / family / society / boss / ex / whatever screwed you and
you've been deprived of what's rightfully yours. Fuck them, you are now
on a quest to acquire by brute force what you deserve.
77pt77 wrote 1 day ago:
The real moat of low status is something completely different.
It consists on punishing people with low status when they objectively
succeed and doing so brutally if they excel.
This entire post sounds like the complaints of someone with extreme
privilege that lived a completely sheltered life.
In fact, the title of this blog, "Useful fictions", plays exactly into
that.
lazyeye wrote 1 day ago:
Scott Galloway talks about this same concept here
[1]: https://youtu.be/rKOx5qlLyaA
djmips wrote 1 day ago:
The moat is filled with people pointing at you and yelling 'Don't quit
your day job'
timewizard wrote 1 day ago:
You have "social anxiety." You are not in a "moat of low status." The
status is purely in your own mind and not something calculated and
assigned to you by the world.
Another CEO flying at 30,000' missing the forest for the trees.
dixong wrote 1 day ago:
Based on her profile picture I find it extremely hard to believe anyone
made fun of her appearance unless one is being compared to a super
model.
caseysoftware wrote 1 day ago:
Good lessons.
Over the past few years, I've managed to convince (and occasionally
demonstrate) to my kids that "you'll be bad at anything new" and that
they only way to get better is practice.
As a result, when other kids have made fun of them for failing, they
rebut with "I've never done this before! I'll get better!" which is
awesome.. being able to handle failure, acknowledge it as failure, and
then figure out how to get better.
If you can get and hold onto that mindset, it's kinda awesome.
OjotCewIo wrote 1 day ago:
> you'll be bad at anything new
I disagree. Innate talent / affinity and transferable experience
exist. I agree with "10% inspiration and 90% perspiration"; however,
given equal effort, people with innate talent are going to win over
people with no or less talent by a wide margin. This applies to
everything. Gym / sports performance, muscle growth, work that needs
IQ, work that needs EQ, life events that need resilience, general
happiness, everything. Genetics is hugely definitive.
And I'm convinced some people bounce back more easily after a failure
because failure is genuinely less hurtful for them. They don't need
to "hold onto that mindset"; they just have it.
majormajor wrote 1 day ago:
> I disagree. Innate talent / affinity and transferable experience
exist. I agree with "10% inspiration and 90% perspiration";
however, given equal effort, people with innate talent are going to
win over people with no or less talent by a wide margin.
I think you are misreading the person you're replying to.
They aren't saying "everybody can be equally good at everything
with practice."
They're saying "don't quit just because you aren't great on day 1."
First time playing basketball even if you've played soccer a ton
and have good general athletic ability? Don't expect to hold your
own if joining a game being played by people who play every week.
First time doing woodworking even if you have an electrical
engineering background and the methodicalness is not foreign to
you? Don't expect your first table to be stunning. Still gonna be
bad at it compared to people with more practice!
Honestly, if you think you're great at something the first time you
try it, you probably just don't know what being great at it
actually looks like. (It could even be "similar result, but better
in some hidden ways, and done in 1/10th the time.")
But if you believe that you'll get better at it with practice,
you'll keep doing it.
If you believe "guess I just don't have innate ability here" you'll
give up and never get good.
rzzzt wrote 1 day ago:
People exist that pick up that chisel / basketball / soldering
iron and do something really impressive with it after being shown
0..2 times. They might have horrible technique, not know the
little tricks and shortcuts, plateau quickly etc., but their
experience of doing the thing is not a series of failures until
they get reasonably OK at it, rather increasing levels of wins.
immibis wrote 1 day ago:
Those people are still growing the limit of their ability just
like you. They're just trying things slightly under their
current limit* instead of slightly over.
* Not an electronics pun
OjotCewIo wrote 1 day ago:
> I think you are misreading the person you're replying to. [...]
They're saying "don't quit just because you aren't great on day
1."
That's not what they're saying. They literally wrote, "you'll be
bad at anything new". That's what I disagreed with. There are
people who are great at something new (for them), and catch up
with (and surpass) old-timers incredibly quickly. And their
learning experience -- not that it doesn't take effort -- is
generally enjoyable, exactly because they succeed from very early
on. I've witnessed this with at least two colleagues. Entered
completely new fields (one of them repeatedly), and in a few
weeks, surpassed old-timers in those fields. These are the guys
who tend to be promoted to senior principal or distinguished
software engineers.
> First time playing basketball even if you've played soccer a
ton and have good general athletic ability? Don't expect to hold
your own if joining a game being played by people who play every
week.
Do expect to mostly catch up with them in 1-2 months! (In my high
school class, the soccer team was effectively identical to the
basketball team.)
> and done in 1/10th the time
I agree with this; yes. But my point is that, for some people,
approaching such a short completion time, with comparable
results, is a relatively fast, and enjoyable, process. They don't
plateau as early, and don't struggle from the beginning.
> If you believe "guess I just don't have innate ability here"
you'll give up and never get good.
Correct, but it doesn't imply that "giving your all" does make
you good (at an absolute scale). You will no doubt improve
relative to your earlier self, but those advances may not qualify
as "competitive", more globally speaking. Giving up (after
serious work) may be objectively valid. For some people,
persevering is the challenge (= lack of willpower, persistence);
for others, accepting failure / mediocrity, and -- possibly --
finding something better, is the challenge.
cutemonster wrote 5 hours 4 min ago:
> Entered completely new fields
What fields, if I can ask?
rzzzt wrote 1 day ago:
Hah, I wrote almost the same thing in a sibling reply with one
difference, plateauing for the hit-the-ground-runners may come
earlier than the first-learn-how-to-walkers.
HellDunkel wrote 1 day ago:
Chapeau- i‘ll copy what you did here.
RaftPeople wrote 1 day ago:
I don't remember who said this but I really like this quote: "What
would you do if you knew you would not fail?"
SlowTao wrote 1 day ago:
I would argue there is no way to make it that you do not fail in
some way. ;)
RaftPeople wrote 4 hours 51 min ago:
> I would argue there is no way to make it that you do not fail
in some way. ;)
True, but I think the quote was more about not worrying about the
outcome just do what you really want to do.
cutemonster wrote 5 hours 2 min ago:
Maybe: "What would you do if reasonably soon you would get really
good at it"
instead?
moomoo11 wrote 1 day ago:
win
kaycebasques wrote 1 day ago:
"Sucking at something is the first step towards being kinda good at
something." --- Jake the Dog
OjotCewIo wrote 1 day ago:
Counterpoint: you'll stop enjoying a new hobby, like learning to
play the guitar, when you decide to get serious about it.
esteth wrote 23 hours 11 min ago:
In my experience this is more related to treating the hobby like
a chore or job instead of doing it for the fun of it, even though
you're bad at it.
I think the relationship is kinda the other way around - you'll
feel like your hobby is "serious" when you stop having fun with
it.
johnfn wrote 1 day ago:
Been writing code for 25 years, 15 professional. Still enjoy it
just as much.
dceddia wrote 1 day ago:
If it turns into treating it as a “should” then my experience
is yes, definitely, that’s a death knell for basically
anything. Without the “should” it continues to be fun. The
trick is threading that needle.
SlowTao wrote 1 day ago:
It is said that God wrote the entire language for to use in a
book and that we shall model ourselves off of it. Once it was
done, God turns his back on the book and Satan sneaked in and
added two words - "Should" and "Aught".
unclad5968 wrote 1 day ago:
This hasnt my been my experience. I continue to love basketball
despite being bad at it for years regardless of how much
"serious" training I do.
lo_zamoyski wrote 1 day ago:
It comes down to pride and an insecure or poorly formed conscience.
Obviously, you are going to be bad at something when you begin. What
did you expect? Know it, accept it, and don’t pretend otherwise. Who
expects a beginner to be good? And why are you afraid of someone, I
don’t know, laughing at you or being condescending? What kind of
prick would do that unless they were envious of your courage or
insecure in their own abilities?
The fact is that many people spend their entire lives putting up
appearances, and with time, it becomes harder and harder for them to do
anything about it, because the whole facade of false identity would
have to crumble. They live is a state of fear of being outed and
shamed. This is a recipe for mental illness.
This matter situation reminds me of the parable about the Emperor’s
new clothes. The boy’s potency comes from stating the obvious. You
find something similar in professional life: the person who is like
that boy in a room full of posers and blowhards is a threat to
pretense, because he states the obvious. In that way, he is more in
touch with reality, even if it is at such a basic level. This is a
great catalyst for change in an organization, if the insecure and
prideful don’t dig in their heels.
The truth will set you free, and where there is good will, there is no
fear. And learn to endure suffering.
fat_cantor wrote 1 day ago:
the math version of this idea:
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41566446
k__ wrote 1 day ago:
Tangential related:
I learned in a class on design that you should work with what you
already know.
If you don't know about colors, then do it in grey scale, if you don't
know about that, do it in black and white.
The best ideas come from working with constraints.
While highly skilled designers/musicians/developers/writers/etc. do
this despite being able to work outside of the constraints, a beginner
can do it too. Sure, they can't choose the constraints as freely as a
pro, but they can make work with what they got and it can lead to
interesting results.
This is also a good way to approach new things without embarrassing
yourself, as you don't try to impress with skills you don't mastered
100% yet.
stego-tech wrote 1 day ago:
I genuinely needed this piece today, specifically. Thanks for sharing
it.
I've been trying to live more authentically in general these past few
years, making tiny little inroads one step at a time towards being
someone I've consciously chosen, rather than merely exist in a safe
form that doesn't risk alienating others (or rather, in a form I don't
perceive to alienate others - obviously I am not a mindreader). Think
classic tech neutral outfits (jeans and neutral shirts, neutral shoes,
neutral socks, the sole piece of color being the Pride band of my Apple
Watch). OCD hurts the process of trying to live authentically, because
it's doing its damndest to ensure I never encounter harm.
So last night, after coming down from some flower and watching the
evening roll in, I decided to put on an outfit I'd put together. All
sorts of bright colors: neon green and black sneakers, bright pink
shirt, sapphire blue denim jean shorts, bleached white socks - and went
for a walk. OCD was INCREDIBLY self-conscious that I would stand out
(duh), court the wrong sort of attention, or somehow find myself in
trouble...for wearing things I see everyone else wear without any issue
whatsoever.
The moat is real, and the mind wants to build barriers to minimize
perceived harms; for neurodivergent folks, it can be downright
crippling. Wallflowering at parties, never gambling on colors or bold
styles, never taking on new challenges for risk of failure. It results
in a life so boring, sterile, and uninteresting - to yourself, and to
others.
So...yeah. I got nothing to add other than my personal nuggets of
experience. Really glad this piece came past on HN today, I think a
lot of folks are going to enjoy its message.
drst wrote 1 day ago:
I’m glad you’re happy.
I do wish we could stop saying “moat”.
Most of us aren’t living in ancient forts we need to protect.
rzzzt wrote 13 hours 35 min ago:
"Moat" is a tinny word according to the Monty Python classification
of words. Also uncomfortably close to "moist".
Moat.
bitbasher wrote 1 day ago:
> Most of us aren’t living in ancient forts we need to protect.
Speak for yourself!
raises draw bridge
jmathai wrote 1 day ago:
As it pertains to this article, what we are desperately trying to
protect is our fragile ego and avoiding embarrassment is the moat
to do so.
jhassell wrote 1 day ago:
Great article. I’ve come to see that feeling embarrassed can actually
be a kind of luxury. When I’m around people with disabilities—many
of whom might simply hope to reach a point where embarrassment is even
possible—it reminds me how much we take that experience for granted.
In that light, embarrassment itself can feel like a privilege. It calls
to mind 2 Corinthians 12:9: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my
power is made perfect in weakness.”
bmicraft wrote 1 day ago:
I'm sorry but I don't quite get what you mean here. Could you maybe
put it in simpler terms?
jhassell wrote 1 day ago:
Sure. Maybe feeling embarrassed is a sign that our pride sometimes
carries more weight than it should. It’s easy to forget that many
people—especially those who are disadvantaged or disabled—might
not even have the opportunity to feel embarrassed in the same way.
Perhaps it’s a gentle reminder to let go a little of our need to
protect our self-image.
reactordev wrote 1 day ago:
I love this.
People have always asked me: Why don’t you have a big house or or ?
My response is always: Because I could use that capital to try
something new. Granted, there were a few times I wish I had the house
because of the market bumps but stocks have made up for it.
People are scared of failing, scared of losing the precarious position
they have built up over the years. The housing market has made that 10x
worse with the prices but humans need to try different things, learn
different things. You can’t just do one thing for 70 years. My father
had 4 careers, 3 wives, 5 children throughout his lifetime. 2 degrees.
I’ve had 1 wife, 1 child, 1 career, 1 degree, because the world is
100x more expensive now. This is what prohibits us from finding our
ikigai.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 1 day ago:
"Cate Hall is Astera's CEO. She's a former Supreme Court attorney and
the ex-No. 1 female poker player in the world."
This article is countersignaling. It also happens to be directionally
correct.
There is absolutely nothing low status about being present-day Cate
Hall. But present-day Cate Hall probably tried and pushed through a lot
of really tough stuff in part because yesteryear Cate Hall had this
mindset. It so happened that she also had the talent to actually end up
in impressive places.
The real lesson one should probably take from a person like this is
that learning to eyeball your own strengths and weaknesses before you
start down the long path of honing them is really important. If you are
low status now but you have reason to believe you will become much
higher status in the future by persevering, then persevere. If not...
joe_the_user wrote 1 day ago:
This article is countersignaling. It also happens to be directionally
correct.
As far as I can tell, you jargony phrase means that this is something
like the humble part of "humble bragging". I'd disagree, I think the
article gives honest good advice, an honest "meta-analysis" of social
status and jumping into new things. It's "actionable", something you
can do.
I would add that its advice for the sort of person who is normally
always thinking about and fairly competent with social status and is
held back from new skills by this. I personally was never too worried
about social status and have learned massive new things by just being
willing to try them but wound-up bitten by my ignoring of status. My
advice for my younger me is to be strategic about publicly ignoring
status but keep going into private.
Also statements like "she succeeded 'cause she was tough" are
meaningless as advice or actionable/verifiable statements. Maybe she
succeeded 'cause she had a bunch of strategies like the one she
outlines, maybe she succeeded 'cause of good luck, maybe she succeed
by family positions, maybe "luck", "toughness" or "mojo" did it.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 21 hours 46 min ago:
>statements like "she succeeded 'cause she was tough" are
meaningless as advice or actionable/verifiable statements
The action you are supposed to take from this is to figure out
whether you're tough, and if you find out you're not, to give up
and go to something else you're better suited for. This seems like
exceptionally actionable advice - just not advice that strokes
anyone's ego.
I will give you an example. When I was 17 I spent exactly one day
as a door to door canvasser for an environmental charity. I got
dropped off into a neighborhood I had never seen before, told to
walk up to people's doors and beg them for money for something I
was pretty sure wasn't particularly effective at solving anything
important, and then do this about a hundred times.
Door #1 gave me one dollar. Door #2 let me call my parents in tears
to come pick me up. Whatever
Unusual characteristic that particular job needed, I did not have
it. I do not have it to this day.
nine_k wrote 1 day ago:
A: Actually, money isn't really important.
B: It must feel good to say so when you have the money.
A: It does.
(Quoting from memory, can't remember the movie.)
posix86 wrote 1 day ago:
Talented people don't have to go through as much embarrassment as
others because they learn faster than normal & will impress through
that, even if they're worse at what they're doing. Also, once you are
truly good at something, it's easier to be bad at something else. But
not disagreeing with her.
e1g wrote 1 day ago:
She’s a VC-backed founder who went to Yale, and her very first job
was at Goldman. What she’s describing in the article is not “low
status” because she hadn’t experienced that. But the feeling she
describes reveals what she thinks “low status” is -
embarrassment.
__turbobrew__ wrote 1 day ago:
From my research the whole Alvea thing was an Effective Alturism
cooked up project that only lasted 3 years and made no money, and
then now they are at Astera which seems to be some rich persons
plaground where they throw money at researchers to do “stuff”.
What that stuff is, I don’t know.
The real moral of this story is you should get rich eccentric
friends from the Ivy League elite who throw money at you to do AGI.
Like you really think this company of like 40 people is going to
crack AGI?
Man I should cross the moat and get some rich friends.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 10 hours 34 min ago:
"Alvea started in late 2021 as a moonshot to rapidly develop and
deploy a room temperature-stable DNA vaccine candidate against
the Omicron wave of COVID-19, and we soon became the fastest
startup to take a new drug from founding to a Phase 1 clinical
trial. However, we decided to discontinue our lead candidate
during the follow-up period of the trial as the case for
large-scale impact weakened amidst the evolving pandemic
landscape."
To be honest Alvea doesn't sound like a crazy idea on paper.
Reducing lead times on new drugs is a really good idea that seems
like it is bottlenecked more by bureaucratic concerns.
A company which focused on that as its sole mission could be
really profitable, if they could sell their professional services
to a group that already had plenty of in house expertise on
actually creating the drugs. My very low resolution guess is that
they slipped up when they actually tried to make the drug
themselves. That may have been a requirement to get funding from
the US government at the time, I don't know.
weatherlite wrote 16 hours 37 min ago:
Well yeah , being high status does not always mean you actually
contribute a lot of value to society. And being medium status
does not mean your value is mediocre - take a nurse or a
kindergarten teacher - their value is substantial but the status
they get is mediocre at best.
So if you get a feeling the "game" is somewhat rigged and
twisted, perhaps the feeling is correct...
joe_the_user wrote 1 day ago:
These thing aren't talked about much. But think the proper way to
discuss is that "social status" exists among groups of rough peers
and "social position" better describes someone's privileges of
wealth, education and employment relative to society as a whole.
Just as an example, a whole lot of dysfunctional dynamics happening
lately seem to involve billionaires jockeying for status with other
billionaires.
Edit: I'd recommend Paul Fussel's book Class since it involves
discussion of these two dynamics.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 1 day ago:
Getting into Yale is indeed pretty good prima facie evidence that
you have what it takes to be high status in the future, in quite a
few domains. Persevering is great advice for most people along most
trajectories who get into Yale.
kragen wrote 1 day ago:
It's not just a question of potential.
Getting into Yale directly confers high status, and it is fairly
well gated by other status-related tests: honors classes and
private schools nudge you to learn the kind of thinking that does
well on the SAT, not the kind of thinking that keeps you out of
danger, as well as pushing you to AP exam prep classes; and
access to extracurricular activities is gated both implicitly (by
school choice) and explicitly by disciplinary measures for
low-status behaviors. Rednecks like JD Vance are a tiny minority
of the Yale entering class, and lower-status groups like illegal
immigrants are as far as I know completely absent.
Also, I think the idea that there is something that it takes to
be high status is incorrect. Social status is its own phenomenon
with its own rules, and sometimes it's pretty random: you get a
good job against the odds, or a good spouse, or you narrowly
escape a disabling accident. You could argue that "what it
takes" in such cases is luck, but graduating from Yale doesn't
indicate that you will be lucky in the future, only of things
that have happened before that.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 1 day ago:
>the idea that there is something that it takes to be high
status is incorrect
>Getting into Yale directly confers high status
Don't these two ideas contradict one another? It sure sounds
like we have at least one known pathway to becoming high
status, and that is getting into Yale.
kragen wrote 23 hours 20 min ago:
No, "something that it takes to be high status" would be some
characteristic (in this context, one that is stable over
time) that was necessary for high status, while something
that "directly confers high status" is something that is
sufficient for high status. It's entirely possible for
something to be sufficient and nothing to be necessary.
You're making the basic logical error of confusing ∀ with
∃.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 21 hours 57 min ago:
Consider the set S of all properties which confer high
status. "Got into Yale" is something we have assumed is in
S, so S is nonempty. 'I have at least one property in S'
seems like it would be a fine candidate for the necessary
characteristic you're after, and it's not vacuous either,
it can actually be achieved in reality. Therefore there is
something that it takes to be high status, in your words.
kragen wrote 15 hours 19 min ago:
That doesn't follow; you're just making the same logic
error more verbose, perhaps in hopes that if the argument
is so hard to understand that it has no obvious flaws,
people will mistake it for an argument that obviously has
no flaws.
hiAndrewQuinn wrote 11 hours 30 min ago:
I genuinely do not see it. If you have a collection of
all sufficient properties for Q, you can construct Q's
necessary property by just rolling them all up into a
big or-statement. "You are high status if you get into
Yale or have a lot of money or are really funny or
...", like that.
Again my specific claim here is merely that such a
statement exists, nontrivially, for this kind of
problem. Not even that we can write it down in full or
whatever. I don't see why that's illegal.
kragen wrote 11 min ago:
For the specific question, I gave some examples
upthread: for example, there isn't something that "it
takes" to marry a spouse who confers high status on
you, except for luck later in life, which Yale's
admissions office can't predict and thus can't use as
an admission criterion. There are persistent
attributes that improve your chances of marrying well
and staying married—conventional attractiveness,
health, intelligence, sanity, etc.—but none of them
are either necessary or sufficient.
If we're talking about the abstract problem in
classical propositional logic, there's no requirement
in classical logic that a proposition Q be true for
some external reason. It can just be true.
Causality is outside the scope of propositional
logic.
It's true that, in classical propositional logic,
there is necessarily a proposition that is necessary
for Q's truth, that is, a proposition that Q implies.
There are infinitely many of them, in fact. Q
implies Q, for example. It also implies Q or not Q,
because in classical propositional logic, any
proposition implies all tautologies. You can't list
them all, and it wouldn't help.
If you have some finite list of atomic propositions
to try to compose your set S from, there is no
guarantee that listing all of the sufficient
conditions from that list (other than Q itself) will
give you an S whose disjunction is a necessary
condition. A simple model of this is P = no, Q =
yes, S = {P}.
samdoesnothing wrote 1 day ago:
It's relative, you can be low status in one group and high status
in another and be the exact same person.
Sounds like from the online bullying she suffered from at Yale, she
was low status there.
jagged-chisel wrote 1 day ago:
I’d like to understand the thinking of those who downvoted and
flagged this comment.
Rexxar wrote 23 hours 17 min ago:
It was "[dead]" or "[flagged]" ? If it was the first it was
automatic and probably caused by previous comments, not by this
one. New accounts (green name) can be auto-flagged quite fast
if they have downvotes or reports on multiple comments.
ImaCake wrote 1 day ago:
Thanks for pointing out that it is counter signalling, but I would
also say that it is good advice regardless. It's like an efficient
highway - the road is straight and unadorned because looking
"scientific" and sensible is how you convince government and the
public it is a good idea. The fact that being efficient is also a net
good is almost a side effect but still not to be ignored!
FlyingSnake wrote 1 day ago:
Be wary of imitating high status people who can afford to counter
signal.
[1]: https://www.robkhenderson.com/p/the-perils-of-imitating-high...
baxtr wrote 1 day ago:
Encouraging people to be low status in order to have high status is a
genius way to create a new status game.
zeroCalories wrote 1 day ago:
I know a lot of people as described in this post, but it's never been
an issue for me. I'm much more concerned about earning status, then
embarrassing myself. I remember when I first started BJJ I was getting
crushed, but it was still fun. But once I had been doing it for a year
getting submitted stung bad because I should have known better. In the
end I think the advice about accepting embarrassment is still good,
because if you're pushing yourself and trying to perform at a high
level you will never stop failing and embarrassing yourself.
ozim wrote 1 day ago:
It is super important to have “no asshole zones”. We can joke about
“safe space” like “South Park” did but at least not having…
work shredded to parts with snarky comments goes far.
I started posting on LinkedIn this year. I was afraid all the time
there will be assholes coming out of woods to just say “you’re an
idiot take this post down” - it happened once in 6 months so not bad.
Other asshole was reposting my stuff picking on the details basically
making content out of me.
Blocking was effective and shadow banning is great as those most likely
moved on not even knowing I blocked them.
layer8 wrote 1 day ago:
I would reconsider why you would want to post on LinkedIn in the
first place.
meesles wrote 1 day ago:
There it is!
ramblerman wrote 1 day ago:
Love the concept but “the moat of low status” is a poor name.
It implies a defensive structure. I.e the advantage I get out of low
status.
Op even refers to the concept of moats as used in business, but
clumsily hand waves the concept to fit her own.
The cage of low status would be more apt
pavement_sort wrote 22 hours 14 min ago:
>It implies a defensive structure. I.e the advantage I get out of low
status.
OP is using the term moat in the standard way, actually. Something
you have to cross to get to the reward (skill at a particular thing),
that most people won't pay the cost for (being temporarily bad at
something and low status). It stops most people from even trying to
compete.
Quote from the article:
"It’s called a moat because it’s an effective bar to getting
where you’re trying to go, and operates much like a moat in the
business sense — as a barrier to entry that keeps people on the
inside (who are already good at something) safe from competition from
the horde of people on the outside (who could be)."
derektank wrote 1 day ago:
Being low status can be psychologically protective in some ways. One
can opt into being low status as a defense mechanism, "I'm afraid of
genuine failure, but by choosing artificial failure from the start, I
can avoid the emotional pain of genuine failure."
charles_f wrote 1 day ago:
I started the piano when I was 32. I'm not particularly good at it,
I'll never play anything complex, but I love playing and I do my best.
My teacher forced me to play in public at some point, and that was
probably one of the best things he did, to get me past the point of
caring.
That made me realize: no-one cares. You're the center of your life, and
it's very important that you succeed, but the very few people who care
about you (and whom you should care about) will have the patience,
empathy, and admiration for you to be in that "moat", everyone else
won't give a shit. If you fuck up, they'll forget about you in a
minute. Try to remember about someone trying to do something you like
but badly? You can't.
Whenever I see a public piano I seat at it. Sometimes it's just shit
and I'm the only one happy I can press keys. Sometimes I manage to play
a piece, and a random couple of people are happy about it.
This is a great article, follow its advice. The definition of low
status is only the one you set for yourself. Push the shame and embrace
it. No one cares anyways
nico wrote 1 day ago:
Very similar to the concept of the dip, explained in the book The Dip
by Seth Godin
I asked Google to briefly summarize the concept:
> The Dip: It's a term Godin uses to describe the unavoidable and
challenging period that occurs after the initial excitement of starting
a new project, skill, or career, and before achieving success or
mastery. This is the time when things get difficult, frustrating, and
many people are tempted to quit
> Embracing the Dip: Instead of being discouraged by The Dip, Godin
suggests that dips can be opportunities. They serve as a natural
filter, separating those with the determination to persevere from those
who are not truly committed. By pushing through the Dip, you can emerge
stronger and potentially achieve greater rewards
OjotCewIo wrote 1 day ago:
> unavoidable
Well, no. Depends on the person. For some people and for some new
undertakings, especially if those people know themselves well
already, they can hit the ground running. I've seen it.
FlyingSnake wrote 1 day ago:
Everything is a remix.
Previous art: “ Willingness to look stupid” by Dan Luu. [1]
Precious discussion
[1]: https://danluu.com/look-stupid/
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28942189
neom wrote 1 day ago:
I grew up in Scotland in the 90s, the high school I went to was ill
equipped to deal with someone as wide as I am on the spectrums. I was
put into the "retarded children" programs. I think this resulted in me
always "knowing" I was the dumbest person in the room, and eventually
as a survival mechanism I learned to, well... not care. All through
college, my 20s and 30s, I always felt like the dumbest person in the
room, but I didn't really care I just felt super happy to be in the
rooms, and so I said whatever I wanted and asked whatever I wanted. Now
that I'm older, I realize what a blessing this ended up being because
I've always ended up in rooms full of incredibly brilliant people
having decent amounts of money thrown my way to be in them.
Low status isn't so bad.
pyrolistical wrote 1 day ago:
The way I describe this idea is shamelessness is a super power
AceJohnny2 wrote 1 day ago:
Tangentially, I've been applying something similar, but actually
thinking of it as the privilege of high status.
As a very senior member of my team, which has a lot of new college
grads, I've been asking the "dumb" questions, the "irritating"
questions, intentionally speaking up what I believe others may be
thingking, specifically because I figure I can afford the social
(career) hit.
djmips wrote 1 day ago:
Indeed. As a senior, I found out that at the last 'retrospective' I
was one the only ones who had anything on 'needs improvement' 'saying
what I believe others might be thinking' - and during anonymous
voting my items did get most of the votes.
nuancebydefault wrote 1 day ago:
I used to be the one that in big meetings would ask the 'dumb'
questions a lot of people undoubtedly had in their mind, but wouldn't
dare to pose. I didn't care that some people would find the question
stupid, since it would make other people happy for not having to
speak up themselves while still getting the info they needed. It
would as well make some people happy for establishing a slightly
higher place in the pecking order. At least i would gain some karma
and maybe even some admiration.
Over the years I did this less and nowadays I mostly only speak when
asked so in rather big meetings.
How did this come to be? I found that people who feel that they
belong in the higher ranks of the social pecking order sometimes
don't like this behavior and actively try to make you look bad. As
I'm quite sensitive and am generally a people pleaser who thrives on
getting external validation (I'm working on it...), it did not feel
good and I feel it wasn't worth the trouble...
citizenpaul wrote 1 day ago:
I wish more people were like you. I can't speak to the past but it
seems all anyone in high status positions wants to do is be "guilded"
and left alone.
niuzeta wrote 1 day ago:
Absolutely. As I get more and more senior, I found myself prefacing a
lot of questions with "let me ask some stupid questions" to ask some
broad questions or context of the meeting. It can be something
seemingly obvious, what's important is it somehow breaks the barrier
for others to ask questions. I used to say "I'm going to play my 'new
guy' card one more time" when I'm new at a company, but this seems to
work more generically, and tends to work in the team's benefit.
yieldcrv wrote 1 day ago:
I have an account on reddit that leans into extremes, specifically to
collect the ad hominem attacks, while wading into benign topics
people won’t talk about but would like consensus on
because they are afraid the benign topic will cause them to get ad
hominem attacked or generally vilified
most people’s reddit profiles are their whole identity and they try
to stay in moderate “polite company” at the expense of remaining
ignorant
recursivedoubts wrote 1 day ago:
Good!
[1]: https://grugbrain.dev/#grug-on-fold
worldsayshi wrote 1 day ago:
Yes this is probably the best thing about feeling senior enough and
maybe the best measure of seniority. If you dare ask stupid questions
you aren't stupid.
But then there are likely also situations when you feel that you ask
a bunch of stupid questions but are faced with blank stares because
people doesn't understand the context enough for those questions
either or they are struggling enough with other problems to even
entertain that kind of question.
It can kind of lead to a similar situation to when the math professor
at uni jokingly asks a "trivial" math question in front of his
students. It's trivial only once you have worked that kind of problem
a 1000 times.
mettamage wrote 1 day ago:
> If you dare ask stupid questions you aren't stupid.
I'm the exception to the rule, I always do this and I'm not senior.
I make it clear too that I do this.
Ah, I just read the article. Yea, I'm not afraid of the moat of low
status. I know what reward it brings, it's easy +EV.
Ampersander wrote 1 day ago:
Sufficient status entirely changes how the act of asking dumb
questions is perceived by others. A person with a small title is seen
as asking dumb questions because they are dumb. A person with a big
title asks dumb questions because they are smart. Of course it's not
just title but also age, gender, race, appearance, etc.
anal_reactor wrote 1 day ago:
I have understood that the vast majority of people are simply not
interested in having conversations, their goal is to perform social
dance that scores them social points.
iamthemonster wrote 1 day ago:
Yes - I'm a senior member of my team too (to the extent that I've
previously been the team lead of similar teams) and it's so freeing
to be able to:
1. Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even
if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself
2. Give up some time working on my own objectives to coach the
juniors, even though there's no cost code to book the time to and
nobody asks me to do it
3. Easily say, with zero guilt: "no sorry that can't be done in 2
weeks, that's a 6 week job" or "sure I can do my part of this job but
I'm going to need you to commit XYZ other resources if you want it to
be a success"
4. Interpret the rules in the way I think is best for the
organisation, not trying to please the person with the most pedantic
interpretation
5. I can produce convincing explanations of how my work performance
is delivering value to the organisation (whereas juniors can
sometimes work their arse off and get no recognition for it)
I'm also a middle aged white man which seems to confer a lot of
unearned trust, but combined with my professional experience I
seriously think I have it easier than the juniors in so many ways,
and it's my responsibility to give back a bit.
blueflow wrote 1 day ago:
I thought this was social competence.
3dsnano wrote 1 day ago:
yes, and we all need a good reminder every once in a while of how
we can act with humility and integrity!
matwood wrote 1 day ago:
> Give plenty of credit to the juniors when they do good work, even
if they were reliant on support, with no need to take credit myself
This is one of the most effective ways to lead because it builds
goodwill and trust on the team. It also takes almost nothing away
from you because as the senior/leader you will get default credit
for most everything. It's always odd to me more people don't
realize this.
brookst wrote 1 day ago:
I want to agree but I’ve observed a contrary pattern a few
times: when higher levels of management don’t get this
principle, and are themselves poor leaders and role models, they
can take this at face value and believe that the juniors get all
the credit and local leadership is contributing nothing.
Soft skills need to be valued from above in order to be workable
strategies in the trenches. And often / usually that’s how it
works.. but not always.
threetonesun wrote 1 day ago:
Having been there, it’s a lose lose situation, where you will
constantly be berated for either not mentoring enough or not
contributing enough, and it’s better to move on than play the
shifting winds.
eru wrote 1 day ago:
Even more so: as a senior, if you don't give extensive credit to
the juniors, people will assume that you have some reasons to be
insecure. So it's worse for your status.
NetOpWibby wrote 1 day ago:
You might need to a new username, you are the good guy.
atq2119 wrote 1 day ago:
I would go even further and call it the responsibility of high status
to ask such questions.
As a high status person, you have an outsized influence on culture
whether you like it or not, and an environment in which this kind of
question can be asked ultimately leads to better outcomes.
matthewdgreen wrote 1 day ago:
Never be afraid to ask stupid questions. As someone who spent years
doing penetration testing, I can assure you that when stupid
questions don’t have an obvious answer, someone isn’t thinking
properly.
Also never be afraid to question people who answer quickly. We spend
way too much effort training smart people to answer quickly rather
than deeply, and there’s almost always a tradeoff between the two.
mberger wrote 10 hours 55 min ago:
I love and struggle with the second point. It's taken me half my
career to realize that people would very much prefer the complete
and right answer slowly or later than the '90% sure' answer right
now. Being quick doesn't make you look smart
paulpauper wrote 1 day ago:
I disagree. Asking stupid questions, even if in good faith, can be
mean being banned from communities or losing participation
privileges. Such as mathoverflow or stackexhcange.
dlivingston wrote 1 day ago:
Category error.
StackExchange is a massive, global forum which has to react
defensively in order to maintain its high-quality knowledgebase
against spammers, scammers, and the same questions being posed
10^N times.
The context here is about knowledge dissemination in local teams,
groups, or organizations. Completely separate category, levels of
trust, motivations, incentives, etc.
worldsayshi wrote 1 day ago:
> I can assure you that when stupid questions don’t have an
obvious answer, someone isn’t thinking properly.
Once you start asking stupid questions on the regular it's quite an
interesting experience how often you can ask "stupid" questions to
rooms full of senior engineers and sort of get back confused
silence. In my experience there's a lot of really important but
"stupid" questions that often just gets half-ignored because
imagination and prioritization is hard.
akoboldfrying wrote 1 day ago:
> Never be afraid to ask stupid questions.
Unfortunately that's the kind of black-and-white advice that seldom
applies in the real world. Would you want to see your surgeon
asking stupid questions? The pilot of the flight you're on?
You wouldn't, because part of your psychological comfort depends on
your perception that people like this -- people whose decisions
really matter -- actually know what they're doing.
ETA: By "stupid questions", I don't mean "basic but obviously
important questions". I mean questions that reveal that you don't
know something that other people expect you to know, that signal to
them (rightly or wrongly) that they may have overestimated you.
matthewdgreen wrote 1 day ago:
And this is why it's very important, in the case of a junior
engineer, to use your "I'm just starting here" privilege to ask
those stupid questions. Or you can be a very senior engineer who
has an established reputation, and can get away with asking what
sound like "stupid" questions just because people assume you know
what you're doing.
We have an expectation that "smart people" should be able to
quickly fill in gaps in lightly-explained systems.
Sometimes this is good: when you're teaching people a new concept
it's great if they can grasp it quickly and approximately. When
you're describing the design of a complex system, you absolutely
do not want people to make incorrect assumptions about the parts
you're skipping over.
The worst example I've seen was learning that the security of an
industrial control platform came down to the fact that the
management software wasn't installed by default. The designers
had assumed that "knowledge of a software library" was a valid
access control mechanism. As the cherry on top, another engineer
chimed in that the software was actually installed on the system
anyway, just in a different location. It took a pile of
incredibly "stupid" questions to surface this knowledge.
akoboldfrying wrote 21 hours 36 min ago:
Great point about "I'm just starting here" privilege, this is
very real and useful.
mrmincent wrote 1 day ago:
Stupid questions are far better than stupid mistakes due to not
asking those questions.
akoboldfrying wrote 20 hours 55 min ago:
Mostly I agree, but I think this statement carries with it an
oversimplification of the world.
In practice, some of what it takes to do a given thing comes
from thing-specific information (which is appropriate to ask
questions about), and some comes from a background of
experience in doing/studying other similar things (formally or
informally). For complicated tasks it basically has to be this
way, because there just isn't time to train a person up from
scratch for each task -- a random person off the street could
not perform surgery merely by first asking a sufficient number
of questions about exactly how to do it. People find "stupid
questions" alarming because they reveal holes in this important
second category, and make people wonder what else important
might be missing.
You could make the argument that it's better for society if
everyone asks whatever "stupid" question comes to mind, because
then incompetent people and charlatans will be quickly exposed
and the harm they would do minimised. But it's not good for the
charlatan!
I don't side with actual charlatans, of course, but most of the
time I do side with people of imperfect competence, because
that's most of us. Competence is improved by practice, and most
tasks are low-stakes. If a person is already near the threshold
of being perceived as unacceptably incompetent by others, and
can discover the information they need via other means than by
asking "stupid questions", that may well be the best way for
everyone.
That's not to say that I advocate never asking stupid
questions. In fact I would encourage people to lean more in
that direction as a default setting -- they are the fastest way
to get the necessary information. They just have a cost that it
would be naive to ignore. It's a judgement call, is all I'm
saying.
nothrabannosir wrote 1 day ago:
> By "stupid questions", I don't mean "basic but obviously
important questions". I mean questions that reveal that you don't
know something that other people expect you to know, that signal
to them (rightly or wrongly) that they may have overestimated
you.
Ok but you didn’t bring up the phrase “stupid questions” …
it’s less about how you define it, and more about a best effort
interpretation of how it was originally meant.
akoboldfrying wrote 1 day ago:
I think the person who initially did bring up the phrase must
have meant it the way I did, because if they didn't -- if in
fact all they meant by it was "basic but obviously important
questions" -- then there would be no reason for them to bring
it up at all, since 100% of people already agree that you
should never be afraid to ask basic but obviously important
questions.
SpicyLemonZest wrote 1 day ago:
I’ve had multiple times in my career when people got mad at
me for asking basic but obviously important questions. Things
like:
* What invariants does this complex transformation preserve?
What guarantees does it make about the output? (Come on, we
all have a general idea, SpicyLemonZest should read the code
if he wants all the details.)
* What’s the latency impact of adding this step? (It
can’t be big enough to matter, stop trying to block my
project!)
* Why did the last release advance to production when it
wasn’t passing tests? (How dare you, our team works so
hard, it says right here in our release manual that those
test failures count as passing.)
akoboldfrying wrote 22 hours 1 min ago:
These are good counterexamples to my "100% of people" claim
as they illustrate something I hadn't taken into account in
my answer: That a basic but obviously important question
could have negative implications about other people. I
agree that it's certainly not always the case that those
people are OK with such questions.
When I wrote my comment, I didn't have such questions in
mind. I wish I'd written it to exclude such questions,
because I think they're not central to the issue here,
which is whether or not asking questions that have negative
implications about one's own ability is always a good idea.
Lewton wrote 1 day ago:
> since 100% of people already agree that you should never be
afraid to ask basic but obviously important questions.
You don’t have a great mental model of how most people
think
tharkun__ wrote 1 day ago:
I don't think that's true. A lot of people are afraid to ask
basic questions that everyone would think are important
because they'd feel stupid asking them.
The thing is that in many a case those basic questions have
not all actually been asked and answered because everyone
involved thought the same: it's stupidly simple, I better not
ask for fear of being marked dumb.
I get the feeling that it's because of fear of being marked
dumb by people like you actually.
But then it often turns out that one of those stupid
questions has not been answered sufficiently or people were
thinking of completely different answers to the question. So
it was a good thing that someone brought it up.
And if the question did already get taken into account and
people did have the same answer(s) in mind then if a senior
person asked, it will probably just be taken as "this guy
knows his stuff and is just dotting Is and crossing Ts" VS a
junior "asking dumb questions that everyone should know the
answer to, duh!"
akoboldfrying wrote 21 hours 46 min ago:
All I'm actually arguing for is exercising judgement in
deciding whether to ask something that might be considered
"a stupid question", rather than following black-and-white
advice to always ask it anyway. All I'm arguing is that
there exists a question that is too stupid to to be worth
the reputational damage of asking.
> I get the feeling that it's because of fear of being
marked dumb by people like you actually.
I make positive and negative judgements about people based
on things they do, which is an imperfect heuristic but the
best one available and much better than nothing. So do you.
tharkun__ wrote 13 hours 52 min ago:
That's fair and I read our parents' comment as using said
judgement of course when asking said dumb questions.
The way I read your comment was that you categorically
oppose asking "dumb questions" no matter what.
cthor wrote 1 day ago:
Surgeons mark where on the body they're operating. This didn't
used to be a standard practice.
Asking "Did I mess up my left and right?" or "Is this the right
patient?" feels like a stupid question to ask. I'd certainly
rather they ask those questions before operating on me! But turns
out it's very hard to get them to do that, so we do surgical site
marking instead.
niuzeta wrote 1 day ago:
I've been struggling to explain the principle behind the
"stupid questions" and your example illustrates the point
perfectly. Thank you. I'll be shamelessly stealing this point
from now on :)
stevage wrote 1 day ago:
That's an excellent example.
pharrington wrote 1 day ago:
I absolutely would want someone who's becoming a surgeon or pilot
to ask the "stupid questions." This discussion is about growth
and change over time as a person.
akoboldfrying wrote 1 day ago:
> This discussion is about growth and change over time as a
person.
Is it? Because the original statement used the word "never" and
didn't mention growth and change over time as qualifiers.
The more one attempts to qualify -- that is, restrict the scope
of -- the advice, the more one tacitly admits the point I'm
trying to make, which FTR is: This advice is not always good
advice.
no_wizard wrote 1 day ago:
In my experience this usually doesn’t turn into a career hit, but a
career boon. I’ve been doing this since I was a junior, now I’m a
staff engineer, and admittedly I am biased toward myself, but my
career growth has been robust and among both my current t team and my
professional network I feel I command a fair amount of respect and
approachability because of this practice, which always pays off in
the long run
pfannkuchen wrote 14 hours 52 min ago:
I've had a similar experience with doing this overall in terms of
career impact. It hasn't consistently worked for me, though. It
really depends on the team.
The main issue I've run into happens when a person's reply to my
stupid question doesn't make sense to me. If I continue asking
follow up questions in order to understand better they sometimes
get angry. But if I stop asking questions when I start to detect
anger then I am left feeling confused about how the system works.
Either way I'm left with a negative emotional impression of the
person's caliber. Which isn't great for me cohering with the team.
I imagine that you've also run into this problem. How do you think
about it?
bravesoul2 wrote 1 day ago:
There must be much more to it. Staff is a leadership role
effectively, right?
no_wizard wrote 1 day ago:
Yes, though that is what I am getting at. It displays good
leadership characteristics and reflects positively upon a person
who acts this way, having the confidence to ask questions that
others don’t or won’t. It’s a positive thing
ants_everywhere wrote 1 day ago:
Overall I like this framing. But I wanted to comment on this
> In poker, it’s possible to improve via theoretical learning....
But you really can’t become a successful player without playing a lot
of hands with and in front of other players, many of whom will be
better than you.
This is an interesting example because poker is a game that has existed
for many years, and for most of those years everyone learned by doing
and was terrible at it.
People who excel at things have typically done more theoretical
learning than the average person. Doing is necessary, but it's rarely
the main way you learn something.
Either you have a mentor who has already absorbed theory and transmits
it to you in digested form, or you have to learn the theory yourself.
But most people get the balance between theory and doing wrong, and
most people err on the side of doing because theory is harder and less
instantly rewarding.
shutupnerd0000 wrote 16 hours 9 min ago:
Everyone on HN is an expert in poker.
BrenBarn wrote 1 day ago:
I think one aspect of this is that learning from doing often involves
more than just doing. It involves paying attention to what you're
doing, and what other people are doing, and then reviewing that.
This doesn't necessarily have to be "theoretical" learning, but it's
deliberate or explicit study as opposed to just hoping to get better
by osmosis. It's easy to do something a lot and not learn from it.
jmj wrote 1 day ago:
well said
vasilzhigilei wrote 1 day ago:
Related: During solo travelling whenever a thought crosses my mind to
do something and my instinctual internal response is discomfort, I try
to make myself do it - even if I feel awkward inserting myself or going
back.
I've had so many awesome conversations with random interesting people
every day during my trips thanks to this. I've gone places I'd
otherwise not experience, all for the sake of exciting adventure and
pushing my own bounds. The confidence that comes from this is
significant.
Also, as a former remote software engineer of 3 years, it has been so
energizing to socialize with people again. Best upper that there is.
bitwize wrote 1 day ago:
Solo travelling was how I formed one of my most salient memories of
the "moat of low status", to wit: going to Japan in 2011. Japan is an
advanced G7 country, but unlike most of the rest, very few people
there speak or understand English. So I was put in the position of
having to get by with my shitty Japanese, or attempt to communicate
even more futilely with the locals in English and seem like an even
bigger, more clueless asshole. I think I gained more levels of
Japanese in those two weeks than I did in two years of university
education.
Tade0 wrote 1 day ago:
My lifetime best command of Italian was when I lost the keys to my
apartment and had to ask around if anyone has seen them.
At that point I was already living part time in Italy for over two
years, but since I was working remotely for a company in my
country, I hardly had an opportunity to learn the language.
Fortunately Italians appreciate people attempting to speak their
language.
djoldman wrote 1 day ago:
There's a LOT here. I feel this applies to a lot of decisions.
For instance, if you want to make a product that requires a database
and you like building database stuff, do the database stuff last. Do
what is difficult first - fail fast.
The easy or default route will always be well known to someone.
vjvjvjvjghv wrote 1 day ago:
It's the typical advice coming from high status people. Reminds me of
rich people glorifying minimalism because they can buy stuff whenever
they need it and throw it away after.
Being truly low status isn't much fun.
weatherlite wrote 1 day ago:
> Being truly low status isn't much fun.
What is truly low status though ? I'd say it is quite rare. Most
people are average. Truly low status I guess would be to be homeless
or be so disfigured you cannot find a mate - something of that sort.
I think many average or even above average people who are not low
status want to have more status and that's their real issue - the
unmet desire for more power, not being actually low status.
alshival wrote 1 day ago:
I agree. I used to live high class. Then the Mafia came at me. I
learned to lay low and appreciate poverty. Also, my ex and I bought a
house, but then a richer man came and she kicked me out on Valentine's
day. Now I despise wealth and luxury and now date only women at the
flea market, cashiers and walmart stockers. Highly recommend. The devil
wears Prada.
anymouse123456 wrote 1 day ago:
I love the repeated phrase, '...and the world wouldn’t turn to ash.'
photon_garden wrote 1 day ago:
In a similar vein, I’ve found helpful:
There’s a difference between pain and suffering.
This is true for emotions: feelings people often find uncomfortable
(sadness, loneliness, fear) don’t have to make you miserable. You can
just feel those feelings in your body, pay attention to what they’re
asking you to pay attention to, and feel deeply okay about it all.
The same is true for physical sensations. Pain is loud so it’s really
good at drawing our attention, but there’s a difference between
noticing you’re hurt and getting upset about being hurt.
I flipped my bike a couple months ago and scraped myself up incredibly
badly, but there wasn’t a ton of suffering involved.
The massive adrenaline shot left me shaking, I felt overwhelmed and
like I wanted to cry, and the pain was very loud. But I laid on the
ground for fifteen or twenty minutes and then walked the fifteen
minutes back home. I wouldn’t call it fun, but it was totally okay.
(Nick Cammarata has a good Buddhist take on this: suffering is a
specific fast, grabby movement you do in your mind called “tanha”
and if you pay attention you can learn to do it less.)
SoftTalker wrote 1 day ago:
One thing that helps with this: getting old. You just stop worrying
about what other people think of you. All the drama and gossip and
cliquish behavior just gets so boring.
Why do you think old fat guys walk around naked in the locker room at
the gym? They've certainly got nothing to show off, but they don't give
a shit.
Llamamoe wrote 1 day ago:
Or maybe you just done need to.
We live in a society in which older people(or men, at least) get some
degree of implicit status and respect - which is probably why our
governments are all getontocracies.
dgfitz wrote 1 day ago:
It’s never been about gender, it’s only ever about money.
You’ll blow your mind when you pull back a layer and realize
this.
Or keep holding time against old men, up to you. ;)
bisRepetita wrote 1 day ago:
Yes. And this is very helpful. If you are young and you suck at
something, more people will give you the benefit of the youth and
envision you may improve. If you're old and you suck at something,
many will think you're just old, and you just suck. "Don't hurt
yourself!" So yes, not giving a shit is a very good way to make
progress.
matwood wrote 1 day ago:
"Sexy indifference" is how I've heard it. Don't be a jerk about it,
but also give off the DGAF vibe. It works.
FlyingSnake wrote 1 day ago:
Sometime around mid-30s I stopped caring about what people think
about me and it had a great effect on my mental well being. I
reconnected with age old Lindy wisdom and started reading classics
that helped me with my midlife crisis. Not giving a fuck surprisingly
opens up lots of doors.
Status games and tech-bro style hustle culture only leads to burnout.
vishnugupta wrote 1 day ago:
For me this is it.
Whenever someone does “statusy” things I just know how it feels
like having done it before so I just move on and don’t participate
in that theater anymore.
aspenmayer wrote 1 day ago:
They “let it all hang out” quite literally.
aspenmayer wrote 1 day ago:
[1] > (idiomatic) to relax and be carefree
> Synonym: let one's hair down
[1]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/let_it_all_hang_out
roenxi wrote 1 day ago:
It is a pretty good article, but it slightly misunderstands status.
Being the first person on the dance floor is closer to a high status
move, because it is taking a leardership position and suggesting what
the group should do next. People avoid doing that because they want to
copy someone of a higher status than themselves, not because they fear
low status. The mechanism nature uses to implement that low status
behaviour is nervousness which is often described as a fear of
"standing out", "looking silly" or similar terms, but those are low
status concerns. High status people don't really suffer from looking
silly, they define what looking silly is by being what they don't do.
brabel wrote 1 day ago:
What a miserable world people commenting here seem to live in where
going out to dance is a sort of status challenging activity?! When I
was younger and frequented dance floors, everyone immediately started
dancing as soon as the music started playing, wasn’t that the point
of being there?? Never even occurred to me to fear being the only one
dancing. And if did happen I would be wondering what kind of people
come here and just stands there.
sokoloff wrote 1 day ago:
There are many events where dancing is not the main point of being
there. Wedding receptions being an obvious one, but there are
others as well.
twelve40 wrote 1 day ago:
No, it gets it just right. The implicit assumption in this example is
that the first person on the dance floor is _not_ quickly joined by
hundreds of other people but continues to be awkwardly by themselves
for a while, possibly then embarrassing themself by completely
failing to attract anyone.
DavidPiper wrote 1 day ago:
When I think of status the way Keith Johnstone describes it in
"Impro", being the first one out on the dancefloor is a completely
neutral action.
_How_ you do it, and your own physical reaction to those around you
while doing it, will reveal whether you're acting from a place of
high or low status.
danaris wrote 1 day ago:
That only works if the person is already seen as high status—ie, if
the other people at the dance are already primed to look at them
going out on the dance floor and say "oh, they're dancing; that means
it's time to dance."
If the person going out on the dance floor is an unknown, then going
out there is a status risk. If it pays off, they can become seen as
high status: a trailblazer, a trendsetter. If it doesn't, they become
(at least for the time being) low status: pathetic, cringe.
Having visible confidence and charisma can help make the gamble more
likely to pay off, but it's not a guarantee.
roenxi wrote 1 day ago:
I mean sure. There is a pretty substantial risk that low-status
people will be perceived as low status if they do something where
success relies on their status being high. I like to offer advice -
low status people probably shouldn't be engaging in status-proving
activities if that worries them. They're making a play for higher
status; that might not work.
danaris wrote 1 day ago:
...I think you've missed my point.
In a situation where someone's status is not already known by a
majority of people present, engaging in activities that rely on
high status are a risk.
No one's status is inherent. It's a purely social construct—and
it can vary depending on what group you're with!
If you look at, say, a black person in the mid-20th century, they
might be very high status among other black people, but if they
go among white people they will be seen as low status.
Leave your own community, go among people who don't know you
(assuming there's nothing immediately visible about you that
communicates status to them, as above), and whatever status you
had before is only as relevant as you make it.
ants_everywhere wrote 1 day ago:
I don't know. There's nothing high status about being the only person
on the dance floor for 3 songs in a row.
> High status people don't really suffer from looking silly, they
define what looking silly is by being what they don't do.
I also don't know about this. Certain high status people are
obsessively concerned with whether they look silly. They used to
routinely fight to the death over it.
I've been reading the Book of the Courtier this week, and it's clear
that even back in the 16th century high status people were very
concerned about whether they looked silly, or even whether their
dances looked silly.
willcipriano wrote 1 day ago:
I'd say dancing alone while everyone else watches can be a high
status thing. Think Tom Cruise in tropic thunder, he was the only
one dancing was he low status?
josephg wrote 1 day ago:
> There's nothing high status about being the only person on the
dance floor for 3 songs in a row.
Simon Sinek says we admire leaders because they take risks on
behalf of the tribe. They'll start dancing first knowing they're
risking looking silly if nobody joins them. Its impressive because
the risk might not pay off.
Being the only person on the dance floor for 3 songs in a row is an
interesting move. I think there is something high status about it -
in that you're clearly showing that you aren't insecure about how
you're seen. I think its polarising. Either it'll make people think
a lot less of you, or more of you. Someone who's generally high
status will often gain status by doing things like that. And
someone who's low status will lose status over it.
People will either say "What an idiot, didn't he realise how goofy
he looked?" or they'll say "Oh did you see what Jeff did to get the
dance party started? We would never have gotten out there without
him. I could never do that!".
It really depends on context.
dustingetz wrote 1 day ago:
the leader isn’t dancing because they want to dance, they are
dancing because the people want to dance
twelve40 wrote 1 day ago:
> People will either say "What an idiot, didn't he realise how
goofy he looked?" or they'll say "Oh did you see what Jeff did to
get the dance party started? We would never have gotten out there
without him. I could never do that!".
the obvious difference even right in that sentence is that
whether that person actually successfully led or miserably failed
roenxi wrote 1 day ago:
> I've been reading the Book of the Courtier this week, and it's
clear that even back in the 16th century high status people were
very concerned about whether they looked silly, or even whether
their dances looked silly.
In the context of the situation the people worrying probably
weren't the highest status person in the room though. In a room
full of princes one of them is going to be feeling pressure because
they are low status relative to their peers. That is what instincts
key off, not absolute numbers of people that a body can't
immediately detect.
MongooseStudios wrote 4 days ago:
A more feelings-ey take on the common "get comfortable being
uncomfortable" type advice. I enjoyed the perspective shift.
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