Thursday, February 15, 2007

Food for thought, on social status

What people really seem to want most is a better place in the pecking order. ...legacy of our evolutionary origins. ... one wonderful thing about status. It can be manufactured at low cost.
...
Both domestically and internationally, we're collectively trending toward mass humiliation of opponents. Why not try to make as many reasonable people as happy as possible when it costs so little?

- Jaron Lanier, from here in the NY Times

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