What Is Status Seeking?

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Sorrows: I would argue memetic theory actually goes deeper than this mirror status signaling while being able to explain all the interesting parts of this type of outlook. This is really a cataclysmic and revolutionary in a good and bad, but mostly a terrifying sense of a moral framework to build a social theory off. What does modernity think normative value derives from? One answer is reason, and that's the enlightenment. That's why we have elections that the individual can through his or her own power reason what is the good without the interference of others. The other I would say is romanticism are intuitions are deep sense feeling. How does that five year old boy over there know that

Ahead of the release of the next episode of his lecture series on René Girard, Johnathan Bi returns for his second appearance on the show. He and Jim discuss Girard, prestige, innovation, AI, and much more. Enjoy! Important Links:

Show Notes:

The Girardian notion of prestige
What proof is there for mimesis?
The difference between mimesis and status signalling
Philosophical critiques of Girard
Girard on innovation
Historical understandings of innovation
A conversation between a pessimist and an optimist
AI, progress and the panopticon
Could we ban innovation?

Books Mentioned:

The Status Game: On Human Life and How to Play It; by Will Storr
The Alchemy of Finance; by George Soros
The Laws of Imitation; by Gabriel Tarde
When These Things Begin: Conversations with Michel Treguer; by René Girard
The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World; by David Deutsch
The Invention of Improvement: Information and Material Progress in Seventeenth-Century England; by Paul Slack
Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future; by Peter Thiel