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2026-02-10

minor update 2026-02-12

Deliberate status engineering is hard

Disclaimer

• Quick Note

Main

• When I use the words "status" or "social approval" or "groupthink", the most precise ways I can describe any of these concepts are in relation to the question "Do you like/dislike them?", and the question "Do you want to distance yourself from them?"
• I also think third and fourth levels of Maslow's hierarchy are important, and if you don't have a certain baseline of people liking you, you can literally become starved for attention and die, in a way not that different from starving for food.
• In practice, it is difficult to say "for instrumental reasons X Y Z, we will make A B C low status". Either you like a person or you don't.
• It is often quite hard to even understand for yourself why you actually like or dislike someone, let alone deliberately modify it for some instrumental reason.

minor update

• I found TLP's opinion on this and he says this also applies to people you fall in love with. It is actually quite hard to even understand for yourself why you actually fell in love with someone, let alone deliberately modify what these criteria are.
• My reaction to this is - skill issue, git gud.
  • I am seriously considering making lots of lists of people I like, to try and reverse engineer this. If I can't even reverse engineer what I myself like, I have even less hope of successfully reverse engineering what lots of people like.

2026-02-12

Update

Quoting a sentence from the "should you trust me?" doc I already published

I support public shaming of people working at labs building superintelligence. I don't think I am all that morally superior than they are, but I think the public thinks heavily in terms of status, and will only coordinate against at an outgroup it feels morally superior to.

Rephrased in simpler words, keeping the above insight in mind:

"I don't actually like myself that much as a person. I don't dislike the people at the companies more than I like myself. But I think the public will only coordinate against a group it actually dislikes. If you are a content creator, maybe you should consider creating content that makes the public actualy dislike the people at the AI companies, even if it means you end up disliking yourself as a person atleast a little as a result. The stakes really are that high. I don't deeply understand why I like or dislike what I actually like or dislike. I don't deeply understand why the public likes or dislikes what it actually likes or dislikes."

And adding a new insight

"If you are dealing with a similar burden as I am, maybe you should atleast consider inventing some rationalisations in your own head that make it easier. I don't have a strong opinion anymore on the topic of morality, and am figuring it out for myself."

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