Status, etc.

This is the most interesting thing you'll read all day, although he lapses into economics talk, so here's a quick primer. If you already know this stuff, just read the thing!

When he refers to "finite status", this is the idea that there's a society-wide pool of status that everyone draws from or puts back into. This would make status a zero-sum game, like a poker game where everyone starts with $20. If you're going to increase your winnings, someone else has to lose. Thus, if you want to increase your status, you must do so by commensurately decreasing other people's status.

This is the classic economic understanding of status. If I buy a new car, my status increases because my car is awesome, but everyone else's status increases because their car doesn't stack up. Or if I get a promotion, everyone who doesn't get a promotion is left seething with envy.

His contention is that, while that might be true, status is way more complex than that.

Because status is not fixed, and new status domains or niches can be opened, there is a possibility for status entrepreneurs who seek to discover, expand, and occupy new status niches. Visionary artists, who become deeply involved with creating something totally new, might be good examples. Sometimes, when you insist on doing something no one understands, others will interpret it as a willful resistance to playing the status game. But perhaps a better interpretation is that it is an entrepreneurial gamble on opening a new status niche. If audio/olfactory immersive ambient concept assemblage really catches on, then the first-mover has a big advantage. When the Museum of Soulwarping Newness buys your great work, “The Elusive Fatuity of Near-Death in C Major, with Notes of Jasmine and Pork Rinds,” for seven figures, and you start getting invited to fancy parties, you’ll be, for a time, a status monopolist in your domain, and forever a pioneer.