Prestige is stupid

[Rami Rustom]

Seeking prestige (i.e. status-seeking) doesn't make sense.

Its as though acquiring more status means having your ideas be taken
more seriously by others [1]. Its as though having more status as a
person makes your ideas *more* true (or more likely to be true from
the point of view of other people).

Consider what this means taken to its logical conclusion. Consider the
day before and the day after a guy gets his PhD. Do his ideas all of a
sudden get more status just because his name gets a new label at the
end of it (PhD)? It can't be that his ideas have more status because
he has better knowledge -- he had the better knowledge before he
completed his final assignment to earn his PhD. Its all so arbitrary.


[1] Does a person who gets a PhD take his own ideas more seriously
(more confidence that his ideas are true?) now that he has a PhD? Did
Keating "trust" himself more when he graduated from architect school?
hmm, I think he did. And I think that "trust" slowly dwindled and was
replaced with "distrust", and what manifested from that is fear. He
could only do well as long as he was manipulating and cheating other
people to get ahead of them. And when he was no longer able to do
that, he became useless. His architectural knowledge was not valuable
and he didn't have any more opportunities to benefit at the expense of
other people.

Roark didn't care about prestige, and I'm guessing he *loathed* the
concept (I don't know, I don't remember whether Rand made Roark hate
it, I'm just guessing from my own perspective -- I loathe prestige).
Does anybody remember? Do you have a specific quote that shows that
Roark hated prestige?

-- Rami Rustom
http://ramirustom.blogspot.com

[Elliot Temple]

On Apr 4, 2013, at 5:25 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Seeking prestige (i.e. status-seeking) doesn't make sense.
>
> Its as though acquiring more status means having your ideas be taken
> more seriously by others [1].

doesn't that work some? though only with *bad* others. so why target their attention?

> Its as though having more status as a
> person makes your ideas *more* true (or more likely to be true from
> the point of view of other people).
>
> Consider what this means taken to its logical conclusion. Consider the
> day before and the day after a guy gets his PhD. Do his ideas all of a
> sudden get more status just because his name gets a new label at the
> end of it (PhD)? It can't be that his ideas have more status because
> he has better knowledge -- he had the better knowledge before he
> completed his final assignment to earn his PhD. Its all so arbitrary.

this is not a very good argument. people are aware that the study for a phd is done over a period of years. if it's relevant, they do think of a first year phd student as a little lower status than a second year one or whatever.

>
>
> [1] Does a person who gets a PhD take his own ideas more seriously
> (more confidence that his ideas are true?) now that he has a PhD?

some do. some don't. why assume there is one answer for everyone? people are diverse.

> Did
> Keating "trust" himself more when he graduated from architect school?
> hmm, I think he did. And I think that "trust" slowly dwindled and was
> replaced with "distrust", and what manifested from that is fear. He
> could only do well as long as he was manipulating and cheating other
> people to get ahead of them. And when he was no longer able to do
> that, he became useless. His architectural knowledge was not valuable
> and he didn't have any more opportunities to benefit at the expense of
> other people.
>
> Roark didn't care about prestige, and I'm guessing he *loathed* the
> concept (I don't know, I don't remember whether Rand made Roark hate
> it, I'm just guessing from my own perspective -- I loathe prestige).
> Does anybody remember? Do you have a specific quote that shows that
> Roark hated prestige?

why would you expect roark to loathe prestige, rather than not be concerned with it?

why would you try to make guesses about roark by assuming he shares your perspective? that is an unreasonable way to analyze roark.

if you don't know anything, why assert? if you don't know what roark thinks about X, why post about it anyway?

if it's important to your post, look through the book for relevant quotes. study it. if it's not important to your post and you don't care to learn enough to have a worthwhile opinion on the matter, then don't mention it (or only ask the question without offering the worthless guess).


-- Elliot Temple
http://curi.us/

[Rami Rustom]

On Mon, Apr 22, 2013 at 3:37 PM, Elliot Temple <cu...@curi.us> wrote:
>
> On Apr 4, 2013, at 5:25 AM, Rami Rustom <rom...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Seeking prestige (i.e. status-seeking) doesn't make sense.
>>
>> Its as though acquiring more status means having your ideas be taken
>> more seriously by others [1].
>
> doesn't that work some? though only with *bad* others.

Right.

> so why target their attention?

If one thinks that doing more business is better than doing better
quality business, then they would want to target their attention. But
seeking quality is better than seeking quantity. So they're wrong.

Also, seeking quality can lead to quantity anyway, e.g. Apple.

>> Its as though having more status as a
>> person makes your ideas *more* true (or more likely to be true from
>> the point of view of other people).
>>
>> Consider what this means taken to its logical conclusion. Consider the
>> day before and the day after a guy gets his PhD. Do his ideas all of a
>> sudden get more status just because his name gets a new label at the
>> end of it (PhD)? It can't be that his ideas have more status because
>> he has better knowledge -- he had the better knowledge before he
>> completed his final assignment to earn his PhD. Its all so arbitrary.
>
> this is not a very good argument. people are aware that the study for a phd is done over a period of years. if it's relevant, they do think of a first year phd student as a little lower status than a second year one or whatever.
>>
>>
>> [1] Does a person who gets a PhD take his own ideas more seriously
>> (more confidence that his ideas are true?) now that he has a PhD?
>
> some do. some don't. why assume there is one answer for everyone? people are diverse.

I was thinking of someone like Keating, not all people.

>> Did
>> Keating "trust" himself more when he graduated from architect school?
>> hmm, I think he did. And I think that "trust" slowly dwindled and was
>> replaced with "distrust", and what manifested from that is fear. He
>> could only do well as long as he was manipulating and cheating other
>> people to get ahead of them. And when he was no longer able to do
>> that, he became useless. His architectural knowledge was not valuable
>> and he didn't have any more opportunities to benefit at the expense of
>> other people.
>>
>> Roark didn't care about prestige, and I'm guessing he *loathed* the
>> concept (I don't know, I don't remember whether Rand made Roark hate
>> it, I'm just guessing from my own perspective -- I loathe prestige).
>> Does anybody remember? Do you have a specific quote that shows that
>> Roark hated prestige?
>
> why would you expect roark to loathe prestige, rather than not be concerned with it?

Ah. Loathing prestige is other-people-oriented. It means caring that
other people care about prestige (i.e. caring what other people
think).

> why would you try to make guesses about roark by assuming he shares your perspective? that is an unreasonable way to analyze roark.

Yes.

> if you don't know anything, why assert? if you don't know what roark thinks about X, why post about it anyway?

No answer. Your right.

> if it's important to your post, look through the book for relevant quotes. study it. if it's not important to your post and you don't care to learn enough to have a worthwhile opinion on the matter, then don't mention it (or only ask the question without offering the worthless guess).

K.

[Elliot Temple]

so you messed up badly. you thought of a tiny subset of X then wrote about X. you aren't paying attention to the defining characteristics of the things you think about -- you omit so many of them that you end up talking about a huge group instead of a very specific subject.

now you comment with no retraction, no "omg i fucked up, i'll do better next time!", no "here is how i'm going to learn from this mistake...", just as if this is a normal conversation where nothing happened.

further, you don't go back and fix the original statement and try to continue the discussion. you just let it die, while having the form of continuing it. you are replying and continuing in form, but in substance this is a dead end where it was your job to continue things (because the first thing was yours, it was wrong, so fix it to continue, but you haven't tried to do that), and you didn't do that.


-- Elliot Temple
http://fallibleideas.com/

[Rami Rustom]

how do u figure i messed up?

> you thought of a tiny subset of X then wrote about X.

i don't know what you're talking about. in the very next sentence
after the one that you criticized, i said Keating. so i didn't mean
*all people*. i meant people like keating.

what is the subset of X and X that you mean?

> you aren't paying attention to the defining characteristics of the things you think about -- you omit so many of them that you end up talking about a huge group instead of a very specific subject.
>
> now you comment with no retraction, no "omg i fucked up, i'll do better next time!",

what problem is that statement intended to solve?

> no "here is how i'm going to learn from this mistake...", just as if this is a normal conversation where nothing happened.

since i didn't know i messed up badly, i had no reason to say that.

> further, you don't go back and fix the original statement and try to continue the discussion. you just let it die, while having the form of continuing it. you are replying and continuing in form, but in substance this is a dead end where it was your job to continue things (because the first thing was yours, it was wrong, so fix it to continue, but you haven't tried to do that), and you didn't do that.

So here's a correction to the original statement: "Does a
[second-handed thinker] who gets a PhD take his own ideas more

seriously (more confidence that his ideas are true?) now that he has a
PhD?"

-- Rami