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Pt1: Why Status Is Confusing - by Aella - Knowingless

aella.substack.com · 2,337 words · saved by 1 readers

People’s ideas about ‘status’ are pretty confused. We know it has something to do with power, but get mixed up in the specifics. Are rich people high status? Well yeah, but say this at a party and someone will point out that they don’t find rich people high status; a rich guy showed up at their birthday party last year and he was kind of annoying, and nobody invited him back. Someone else will volunteer that Trump is very rich, but if he entered the room right now they’d dump their beer in his face. Okay - so is it being liked, then? Do you have to be charming and charismatic to be high status? Maybe, but you remember you have a sister who’s got an amazing gravity field, everyone falls in love with her, people don’t just invite her to their party, they actively hunt her down and try to bribe her to attend - but she’s scattered, poor, and doesn’t follow through on any projects. I mean, hell, people really like their pets, but this isn’t Egypt and your cute calico kitty isn’t getting any

Pt1: Why Status Is Confusing Our conceptions are fuzzy by design Aella Jul 03, 2025 317 103 21 Share People’s ideas about ‘status’ are pretty confused. We know it has something to do with power, but get mixed up in the specifics. Are rich people high status? Well yeah, but say this at a party and someone will point out that they don’t find rich people high status; a rich guy showed up at their birthday party last year and he was kind of annoying, and nobody invited him back. Someone else will volunteer that Trump is very rich, but if he entered the room right now they’d dump their beer in his

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