Comment by frankest
3 hours ago
Envy is worth talking about. It seems to pull a lot of people, like one of the strings in string theory. They want to be envied so they live an exhibitionist life, or they were surpassed by someone they thought was their equal and now they hate the gap. Is it possible people who feel envy then decide to be more exhibitionist, so they can be envied in the future?
I wonder what value envy provided to evolution? Did it motivate primates to do more than they are already doing? Is it a by-product of social status behaviors?
> by-product of social status behaviors
I think that's the one. There's entire rituals to show social status. For example, weddings. That's all it is for.
Weddings are also a social commitment exercise to the couple. Imagine if you had break a promise you made in front of everyone both of you know, after spending a whole lot of money. It’s loss aversion and social shame that possibly made a lot of couples stick together. Even so, posing with your best clothes, food, locations, entertainment and donning all of your jewelry (all of your wealth in gold in some country) does likely play the Envy string too.
on an individual, or societal pov, i heavily doubt this is the case... it might be true in some subsets of some societies (royalty? maybe, not sure), or maybe in some periods of times. but this view seems extremely reductive.