Christian—you’re right that signaling intelligence during events is not the same as signaling social power by leading events.
However, why do you think people are motivated to seek power, status, prestige, influence, etc in the first place? Does (unconscious) mating effort play no role at all in these goals?
In every culture that’s been studied so far (and indeed in every sexually-reproductive highly social species that’s been studied so far), leadership, power, status, and prestige tend to be romantically attractive, and mating effort tends to drive a lot of status-seeking and leadership-motivation. This is why ‘hypergamy’ (desire to mate ‘upwards’ in terms of status and dominance) is a common pattern in social primates.
I guess the EA subculture could take the view that both hypergamy (as a mate preference) and status-seeking (as a mating strategy) are morally illegitimate, and should not be tolerated. But, again, I think that carries a lot of hidden costs for our movement.
These are obviously tricky issues, and it can be very difficult for us to acknowledge many of our unconscious motivations. But I hope that EAs reading these posts and comments will take some time to ruminate on their own mate preferences and motivations, and the roles that they have played—for better or worse—in their own intellectual and moral lives.
I really don’t think the crux is people who disagree with you being unwilling to acknowledge their unconscious motivations. I fully admit that sometimes I experience desires to do unsavory things such as
- Say something cruel to a person that annoys me - Smack a child when they misbehave - Cheat on my taxes - Gossip about people in a negative way behind their backs - Eat the last slice of pizza without offering it to anyone else - Not stick to my GWWC pledge - Leave my litter on the ground instead of carrying it to a bin - Lie to a family member and say “I’m busy” when they ask me to help them with home repairs - Be unfaithful to my spouse - etc.
If you like, for sake of argument let’s even grant that for all the nice things I’ve ever done for others, ultimately I only did them because I was subconsciously trying to attract more mates (leaving aside the issue that if this was my goal, EA would be a terribly inefficient means by which to achieve it).
Even if we grant that that’s how my subconscious motivations are operating, it still doesn’t matter. It’s still better for me to not go around hitting on women at EA events, and the EA movement is still better off if I’m incentivised not to do it.
Maybe all men have have a part of ourselves which wants to live the life of Genghis Khan and torture our enemies and impregnate every attractive person we ever lay eyes on—but if that were true, that wouldn’t imply it’s ethical or rational to indulge that fantasy! And it definitely wouldn’t imply that the EA project would be better off if we designed our cultural norms+taboos+signals of prestige in ways which encourage it.
The better I am at not giving in to these shitty base urges, and the more the culture around me supports and rewards me for not doing these degenerate things, the happier I will be in the long run and the more positive the impact I have on those around me will be.
Signaling intelligence, creativity, wisdom, and moral virtues is not the same as signaling social power by leading events.
To the extent that people have power through their roles, that’s not directly about signaling intelligence, creativity, wisdom, and moral virtues.
Christian—you’re right that signaling intelligence during events is not the same as signaling social power by leading events.
However, why do you think people are motivated to seek power, status, prestige, influence, etc in the first place? Does (unconscious) mating effort play no role at all in these goals?
In every culture that’s been studied so far (and indeed in every sexually-reproductive highly social species that’s been studied so far), leadership, power, status, and prestige tend to be romantically attractive, and mating effort tends to drive a lot of status-seeking and leadership-motivation. This is why ‘hypergamy’ (desire to mate ‘upwards’ in terms of status and dominance) is a common pattern in social primates.
I guess the EA subculture could take the view that both hypergamy (as a mate preference) and status-seeking (as a mating strategy) are morally illegitimate, and should not be tolerated. But, again, I think that carries a lot of hidden costs for our movement.
These are obviously tricky issues, and it can be very difficult for us to acknowledge many of our unconscious motivations. But I hope that EAs reading these posts and comments will take some time to ruminate on their own mate preferences and motivations, and the roles that they have played—for better or worse—in their own intellectual and moral lives.
I really don’t think the crux is people who disagree with you being unwilling to acknowledge their unconscious motivations. I fully admit that sometimes I experience desires to do unsavory things such as
- Say something cruel to a person that annoys me
- Smack a child when they misbehave
- Cheat on my taxes
- Gossip about people in a negative way behind their backs
- Eat the last slice of pizza without offering it to anyone else
- Not stick to my GWWC pledge
- Leave my litter on the ground instead of carrying it to a bin
- Lie to a family member and say “I’m busy” when they ask me to help them with home repairs
- Be unfaithful to my spouse
- etc.
If you like, for sake of argument let’s even grant that for all the nice things I’ve ever done for others, ultimately I only did them because I was subconsciously trying to attract more mates (leaving aside the issue that if this was my goal, EA would be a terribly inefficient means by which to achieve it).
Even if we grant that that’s how my subconscious motivations are operating, it still doesn’t matter. It’s still better for me to not go around hitting on women at EA events, and the EA movement is still better off if I’m incentivised not to do it.
Maybe all men have have a part of ourselves which wants to live the life of Genghis Khan and torture our enemies and impregnate every attractive person we ever lay eyes on—but if that were true, that wouldn’t imply it’s ethical or rational to indulge that fantasy! And it definitely wouldn’t imply that the EA project would be better off if we designed our cultural norms+taboos+signals of prestige in ways which encourage it.
The better I am at not giving in to these shitty base urges, and the more the culture around me supports and rewards me for not doing these degenerate things, the happier I will be in the long run and the more positive the impact I have on those around me will be.