#picall

[ma-pi-ma]

Mi piacciono i timidi, somigliano a quei fiorellini piccolissimi difficili da notare, ma che se li guardi da vicino ti accorgi di quanto sono belli.

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[ma-pi-ma]

Resisti. Non cambiare. Resta gentile, ma anche selvatica, come una rosa.

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[ma-pi-ma]

Sbocciare dove capita senza sentirsi mai fuori posto. È questa la magia di chi trasmette bellezza.

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[ma-pi-ma]

Quando tra gli steli d’erba fiorisce un blu che riflette il cielo, ogni gravità scompare.

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[ma-pi-ma]

Ma tu lo sai che gli alberi sognano, le montagne pensano, e la luna dondola?

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[ma-pi-ma]

Il lato positivo di quando sei giù, è che vedi meglio i fiori.

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[nelsonrushton]

Status, Romance, and Money (July 12, 2015)

Boys will be boys, always and of course; and they will be apes if you let them.

What do apes want? Beyond immediate visceral needs and wants, the principle interest of an ape is his or her position in their pack. Pack status is the essence of achievement in an ape's mindscape. It is very  important to the ape in us, as well.

In an earlier article I posited two laws of human nature as follows:

Men have an abiding impulse to gather power to themselves. Power, in the relevant sense, is the ability to make other people do what they do not want to do.

Power is most clearly demonstrated by exercising it – that is, by actually making people do what they do not want to do.

It is an interesting question why people crave power over other people, and the answer is relatively simple: in a natural state, the best predictor of survival and reproduction of a pack animal is its rank in the pack. I call this the principle of status. The corollary of this is that a great deal of human behavior is driven by the desire to rise in social rank; and that is the subject of this article.

Status and romance

Status figures strongly in the art of seduction. Eric Von Markevich has written a notable book called The Mystery Method (2007, St. Martin's Press), which basically describes an algorithm for seducing women. The method has been tested in what is as close as possible (given the subject matter) to systematic, numerous, controlled experiments. On one hand, it is clear -- whether the author or his readers admit it or not -- that the intended and actual use of the approach  is for mostly base purposes. On the other hand, it can also be put to less base purposes, and even noble ones The essential subject matter -- how to woo women -- is as important as anything, and I believe Von Markevich's treatment is of unprecedented depth, clarity, and verity. Thus, I believe it would not be far fetched to count Mystery Method among the great books of the Western World.

An essential principle of the "Mystery method" is this: interactions between people, of any sex, are governed extensively, and in many ways predominantly, by their perceived social rank. In particular, the principle generator of attraction for most women is to be perceived as the alpha male of a social group she is in, or wants to be in. To the degree that a woman's attractions are governed by instinct -- which is a great degree typically -- this follows directly from the status principle: the best predictor of survival and reproduction of a pack animal is its rank in the pack.

Though I do not know of as systematic a treatment of the subject, I believe that many or most men experience attraction for similar reasons. My thesis is that what makes a woman attractive to the average man, basically (and somewhat sadly), is whether he feels that other men find her pretty. This explains why media leads the culture in the conception of feminine beauty; people do not know what other people really feel but they do know what they see in TV, movies, and magazines; and surprisingly often it governs their visceral sense of what is hot. In Europe and North America, this has had some rather twisted consequences. The fashion industry leads the media in study of sex appeal, and the fashion industry is heavily influenced, if not dominated, by the tastes and proclivities of gay men. As a result, we find a disproportionate number of female models and celebrities who basically look like boys: tall, hard, cool in a manly way, and uncurvy. And as a result of that, the male population as a group now leans gay as far as their taste in female beauty. For example, I cannot say for sure which of the following looks most unlike the other two, but I think Jane is the odd one out.

Jane Russel:

Victoria’s Secret model Cameron Russel:

Tony Perkins:

Money and status

William James wrote,

If you only care enough for a result, you will almost certainly attain it. If you wish to be rich, you will be rich; if you wish to be learned, you will be learned; if you wish to be good, you will be good.

Now most people find it odd, if not observably false, to say that if you wish to be rich, you will be rich. Most people, it seems at a glance, wish to be rich and are not. Certainly James observed this. We can begin to resolve the paradox, however, by asking why people want money. The desire for it is often so automatic that the question is seldom answered carefully on general principles.  

What is good about having money? I believe the ways in which money improves one's life, or seems to, fall into three categories:

Money makes life more comfortable and pleasant, kinesthetically -- air conditioning, steak dinners, etc.  

Money can solve or ameliorate certain problems for yourself and people you care about -- medical and legal problems especially.

Perceived affluence increases social rank.

I have long believed that item number 1 was illusion. People adapt quickly to their present circumstances as a baseline of comfort, and their circumstances are not crucially different as long as they live in the first world. 

Billionaire Warren Buffet confirmed this in his 1998 commencement address at the University of Florida business school:

I urge you. We basically never borrow money. I never borrowed money even when I had $10,000. Basically, what difference did it make. I was having fun as I went along it didn’t matter whether I had $10,000 or $100,000 or $1,000,000 unless I had a medical emergency come along. I was going to do the same things when I had a little bit of money as when I had a lot of money. If you think of the difference between me and you, we wear the same clothes basically (SunTrust gives me mine), we eat similar food—we all go to McDonald’s or better yet, Dairy Queen, and we live in a house that is warm in winter and cool in summer. We watch the Nebraska (football) game on big screen TV. You see it the same way I see it. We do everything the same—our lives are not that different. The only thing we do is we travel differently [referring to a private jet]. What can I do that you can’t do?

Item number 2 is decidedly not illusory, and Buffet mentions it in his talk. On the other hand, most people, most of the time, are not occurrently worried about future emergencies -- and so this cannot possibly account for a culture of money grubbing, even mild money grubbing.

I think it is item number 3 that gives so many people an impish, faraway look when they contemplate, say, winning the lottery. As the Travie Mccoy song says,

I wanna be a billionaire so freakin' bad

Buy all of the things I never had

Uh, I wanna be on the cover of Forbes magazine

Smiling next to Oprah and the Queen

The opening lines of the song, like most as-such lust for money, is about owning fancy things and knowing fancy people -- and being seen with both by like minded others who look on, covet, and despair. 

Is a Ruth’s Chris steak really better than a Chris’s hot dog?  Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t -- depending on your  mood, cravings, company, and how hungry you are. It is almost certain, though, that your date will be more impressed with Ruth’s Chris. The difference between a $100 dinner and a $10 dinner is less about the taste of it than about who it says you are, and who is listening.

Now we can resolve the paradox. The next line of Jame's essay goes as follows:

Only you must, then, really wish these things, and wish them with exclusiveness, and not wish at the same time a hundred other incompatible things just as strongly.

People who truly value money, and who do not value incompatible things, do tend to wind up with a lot of it. But people who value being seen with a lot of fancy stuff, and also value having as much of that stuff as they can muster right now, do not usually succeed -- because those two wants are incompatible. As much as you can muster right now comes on credit at 18%. 

[oaisos]

 So many feelings rn (all the credit goes to Takanaga Hinako)