Comment by throw10000

10 hours ago

> That’s what all people say. Everyone who is status driven will not admit or even realize they are status driven. But the fact of the matter is… it is human nature to be status driven. Everyone recognizes status symbols and possesses such a drive within them. It is also clinically tied with serotonin levels and observed in cross species behavior. To say you have no drive for status is an either a lie or delusional. The evidence is so ingrained in science.

Isn't that just a kafkatrap?

Consider the following exchange where a sane man finds himself in a psychiatric ward:

John: I'm telling you, I'm sane. I don't have any delusions of grandeur and I don't think that I'm Jesus.

Evaluator: I see, your subconscious delusion and erroneous insistence upon sanity are more pervasive than I thought. Your repeated attempts to assert that you're not Jesus is clearly a defense mechanism. I'm afraid I cannot recommend your release.

Something went wrong here.

Or to rephrase: suppose that a person existed who was not status driven. Would you be able to detect such a person if they existed?

Change your example too John saying he doesn’t have experience the emotion of fear. He has never experienced such an emotion in his life.

The thing many people do not understand is how ingrained status seeking is in not just human biology… but biology altogether. Even the lobster has serotonin and is status seeking. It is also in built into our society. Practically every facet of every culture across time has status seeking imprinted into it. Among academia and people who study the biology and behavior it’s unequivocal that people are status seeking.

Basically to help you understand where I’m coming from it’s like this guy is claiming he’s never felt jealous before. “I’ve never cared that someone has more than me or covetted what another man has. It’s just illogical! I’m baffled that other humans act so illogically”.

It’s like that. It’s fake and it’s posing a bit. A lot of HNers like to position themselves as super intelligent people who are incapable of being status seeking or jealous or even feeling scared because it’s “illogical”