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Olli Järviniemi's avatar

I really liked these essays and encourage you to collect the rest of them. The last one hit home.

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Caperu_Wesperizzon's avatar

Status dynamics is definitely one of my natural colorblindnesses, and most people’s behavior began to make a lot more sense to me when I started modelling them as driven by status and very little else—and, unlike me, actually able to sense in real time how it’s negotiated.

> You're not supposed to use it, except you are, except you're supposed to hide it, except everybody makes fun of you if you hide it, you're supposed to do some weird dance where you hide it just enough and wink-wink just enough, you never can tell where the line is, and there's awkwardness all around.

Sounds like rules evolved precisely to make socially akward people more awkward, marking them as losers not worth associating with, and worth openly mocking so everyone knows you’re not one of them. If you can succeed only by breaking the rules, then those unable to figure out on their own when they can afford to break them will be weeded out—those unable to figure out the real, unspoken rules that will actually be enforced.

> Oh, right, we forgot to mention, being good with your left hand—being able to use it in a skillful and dextrous manner—it's actually really important. Like, you can get along without much skill if you have to, but people say things like "no marriage will ever last without partners who are able and willing to help each other out with left-handed tasks."

In other words, the people who get weeded out by this process are not marriage material—of course.

> This is your body. You're supposed to be in charge of it—you're supposed to have the rights to it, as long as you're not hurting other people or being disruptive or dangerous in public. As long as you're not, y'know, spitting in people's food or tracking in dirt or talking during a movie.

Supposed by whom? Is that not one of those wink-wink-nudge-nudge rules only socially awkward nerds expect to be universally enforced, while normal people understand it’s just the polite, manipulate-other-monkeys sound track to play in some situations and ignore it everywhere else?

By the way, I find your bus story impressive.

I’m also scared by—almost?—everyone’s ability to seemingly throw reason under the bus at any time. But they usually know to do it in a way that benefits them, usually at the expense of someone else you were expecting them to coöperate with; so are they truly being irrational, or just defecting and refusing to share their rationality with the victims of their defection, like the Spartans did when they judged their interlocutor unworthy of any reply beyond a pithy insult? After all, they’re not going to spend mental energy to acknowledge their own defection. If you call a defector a defector, they’ll be offended, regard your speech act as a defection itself, and retaliate by defecting more.

It seems you can never go wrong if you assume it’s status and power struggles all the way down. Forget it at your own peril. Expect communication to be a shared, honest search for the truth at your own peril.

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