I don’t know that I agree with the mechanisms Sasha proposes, but I buy a lot of the observations they’re meant to explain.
In particular, I don’t think conferring status was a big part of the problem for me. It was more internal. The more dangerous thing was taking my beliefs really seriously, only allowing myself to care about saving the world and ruthlessly (and very naively) optimising for that, even to the detriment of things like my mental health.
In particular, I don’t think conferring status was a big part of the problem for me. It was more internal. The more dangerous thing was taking my beliefs really seriously, only allowing myself to care about saving the world and ruthlessly (and very naively) optimising for that, even to the detriment of things like my mental health.