Example 1: "It's low status to sleep in your car."
I can totally believe that this is code for "'the authorities' don't want you to sleep in your car."
It seems like this kind of thing is punished waayyy out of proportion to the the cost to society (which is basically non-existent, as near as I can tell).
But this is one way to escape from high rents and therefore wage slavery. Thus, punished, and censured as low status.
Example 2: "It is low status to be an incel, or to be/act sexually desperate."
This seems better explained by actual status rooted in ancient mate-assessment processes. Social proof: if no one wants to fuck you, you must be pretty lame.
Example 3: "Liking Trump"
Hm. This could obviously fit the "counter to the social authority" story.
But also, trump is cringy because he's...so brazenly crude and buffoonish?
But, if he were on the other side of the culture war, maybe the crudeness would be cool and the buffoonishness would look like something else entirely.
See the "assholes are heroes" section of the article below.
I hadn't realized this, but it seems like a crucial insight.
Systems incorporate the powerful effects of the things that they're exposed to, so that there are diminishing marginal returns to those powerful effects.
"Powerful" in this sense is relative to a time and place.
Is it possible to train people to be good rulers? So that the people with privilege are good social stewards instead of assholes?
I don't know. The historical record is not great on this point. It seems like trying to be a social steward tends to morph into thinking that you're better than everyone else, and deserve the best stuff at the expense of everyone else.
Thread, responding to @silencenbetween, on my current guesses about why an emphasis on virtue seems notably absent in our society, compared to my imagining / understanding of other societies in history.
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Although, it does still bother me when people blame "capitalism", in particular.
I guess because it is particularly infuriating when one of the very few the incredible, amazing, generators of enormous historical good is blamed for bad things.
I want to compile all of my twitter threads that touch on what I care about in a romantic partnership / spiritual collaboration.
This is largely for my own reference.
However, it occurs to me that a bunch of disparate threads, each of which was alive when I wrote it, and each dealing with a different facet, might in aggregate, be a good way of conveying the ephemeral thing-ness of my experience.
I'm increasingly resistant to try and describe what I want in this domain in any kind of top-down way, because when I try, my descriptions often feel "flat" to me, and more-often-than-not I feel missed or projected on.