twointwomillion
New member
This is a bit of different type of post but it's something that I've been thinking about and that I feel might be relevant to founders. Not only in terms of your own happiness but also as a way to spark new ideas about marketing to consumers and creating the right products for your customers.
Let's get into it.
Status games are collective, hierarchical, zero-sum, finite, and measured by others.
You play them with and for others. For me to win, you have to lose. If I take more pieces of the pie, there are fewer pieces left.
There is no win or lose without context. There’s no good or bad. Only better than or worse than.
Each event determines your status at that moment.
You do the work because it’s merely a means to an end.
Maker games are individual, meritocratic, non-zero-sum, infinite, and measured by you or by real selective pressures, e.g. laws of nature, the market, etc.
See The Expert Problem in this essay: Marketing Is Comedy, Not Engineering
You play them alone and for yourself. There’s a strong compulsive component. You know what’s good and what’s not. You judge the work, not others.
There are others like you, some in front of you, and some behind you. Different levels of experts, hence meritocratic.
For me to win, everyone else can win. Since winning simply means becoming better at achieving ‘goodness worthy of praise’. We’re not taking pieces of the pie, we’re growing the pie.
Status is a function of the promises made to yourself and kept, as well as the realization that you’re facing your fears (instead of hiding or running away from them) and pushing yourself to your full potential.
Hence, infinite games. Each individual event in isolation isn’t that important, it’s the string of events that matters here.
You do the work because you can’t not do the work. It’s almost compulsive and you may even look down on rewards for the work (e.g. money, degrees, awards.) [1]
Most people play status games… but not you.
[1] There’s no judgment in here. It’s not right or wrong. In fact, a strong aversion to money because one feels it betrays the values of a real [fill in the blank] might even be counterproductive. E.g. there are many creatives who’d be able to create more and better things if they had the financial means.
[2] I was thinking about whether or not status in social dynamics is oligopolistic, meaning, there are a select few that have all the status. Or if it functions along a smooth continuum. Female Tinder would suggest the former, Male tinder the latter. It’s interesting to think about how this relates to consumer behavior and branding.
If you enjoyed this essay, I got a newsletter here: https://www.younglingfeynman.com/subscribe
Where I talk about entrepreneurial science, consumer behavior design, and ways to take your business from average to extraordinary.
RJ out.
Edit: If anyone wants clarification on certain ideas laid out here or if you want to engage in productive dialogue, I’m more than open.
Let's get into it.
Status games are collective, hierarchical, zero-sum, finite, and measured by others.
You play them with and for others. For me to win, you have to lose. If I take more pieces of the pie, there are fewer pieces left.
There is no win or lose without context. There’s no good or bad. Only better than or worse than.
Each event determines your status at that moment.
You do the work because it’s merely a means to an end.
Maker games are individual, meritocratic, non-zero-sum, infinite, and measured by you or by real selective pressures, e.g. laws of nature, the market, etc.
See The Expert Problem in this essay: Marketing Is Comedy, Not Engineering
You play them alone and for yourself. There’s a strong compulsive component. You know what’s good and what’s not. You judge the work, not others.
There are others like you, some in front of you, and some behind you. Different levels of experts, hence meritocratic.
For me to win, everyone else can win. Since winning simply means becoming better at achieving ‘goodness worthy of praise’. We’re not taking pieces of the pie, we’re growing the pie.
Status is a function of the promises made to yourself and kept, as well as the realization that you’re facing your fears (instead of hiding or running away from them) and pushing yourself to your full potential.
Hence, infinite games. Each individual event in isolation isn’t that important, it’s the string of events that matters here.
You do the work because you can’t not do the work. It’s almost compulsive and you may even look down on rewards for the work (e.g. money, degrees, awards.) [1]
Most people play status games… but not you.
NOTES
[1] There’s no judgment in here. It’s not right or wrong. In fact, a strong aversion to money because one feels it betrays the values of a real [fill in the blank] might even be counterproductive. E.g. there are many creatives who’d be able to create more and better things if they had the financial means.
[2] I was thinking about whether or not status in social dynamics is oligopolistic, meaning, there are a select few that have all the status. Or if it functions along a smooth continuum. Female Tinder would suggest the former, Male tinder the latter. It’s interesting to think about how this relates to consumer behavior and branding.
If you enjoyed this essay, I got a newsletter here: https://www.younglingfeynman.com/subscribe
Where I talk about entrepreneurial science, consumer behavior design, and ways to take your business from average to extraordinary.
RJ out.
Edit: If anyone wants clarification on certain ideas laid out here or if you want to engage in productive dialogue, I’m more than open.