Gosh-darn it.

There's also this paper, which I assume the Elephant in the Brain chapter to draw on (though I didn't check the references) (emphasis added):

Since the dawn of Western thought, philosophers, scientists, and comedians have tried to explain what makes things funny. Theories of humor, however, tend to suffer from one of two drawbacks. Domain-specific theories, which address narrow sources of humor, such as jokes (Raskin, 1985) or irony (Giora, 1995), are incapable of explaining humor across domains. And general humor theories, which attempt to explain all types of humor by supposing broad antecedents, such as incongruity (Suls, 1972), superiority (Gruner, 1997), or tension release (Freud, 1928), often erroneously predict humor, as in the case of some unexpected tragedies. For example, unintentionally killing a loved one would be incongruous, assert superiority, and release repressed aggressive tension, but is unlikely to be funny. Moreover, most humor theories have difficulty predicting laughter in response to tickling or play fighting in primates (including humans). Consequently, evolutionarily primitive sources of laughter, such as tickling and play fighting (Gervais & Wilson, 2005), are typically treated as distinct from other sources of humor (Provine, 2000; Wyer & Collins, 1992).

Although existing theories do not agree on the specific necessary and sufficient antecedents of humor (Martin, 2007), a broad review of the literature suggests three conditions that facilitate humor. First, theorists since Aristotle have suggested that humor is often evoked by violations, including apparent threats, breaches of norms, or taboo content (Freud, 1928; Gruner, 1997; Provine, 2000; Veatch, 1998). Empirical work confirms that humor is aroused by displays of aggression, hostility, and disparagement (McCauley, Woods, Coolidge, & Kulick, 1983; Zillmann, 1983). For example, primates often laugh when they are play fighting, tickled, or in the presence of other physical threats (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Provine, 2000).

A second, seemingly contradictory, condition is that humor occurs in contexts perceived to be safe, playful, nonserious, or, in other words, benign (Apter, 1982; Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Ramachandran, 1998; Rothbart, 1973). For example, apparent threats like play fighting and tickling are unlikely to elicit laughter if the aggressor seems serious or is not trusted (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Rothbart, 1973).

A third condition provides a way to reconcile the first two: Several theories suggest that humor requires an interpretive process labeled simultaneity, bisociation, synergy, or incongruity (Apter, 1982; Koestler, 1964; Raskin, 1985; Veatch, 1998; Wyer & Collins, 1992). That is, humor requires that two contradictory ideas about the same situation be held simultaneously. For example, understanding puns, in which two meanings of a word or phrase are brought together, requires simultaneity (Martin, 2007; Veatch, 1998). Simultaneity, moreover, provides a way to interpret the threats present in play fighting and tickling as benign.

With the exception of Veatch (1998), researchers have not considered these three conditions together. Considered together, however, they suggest an untested hypothesis: Humor is aroused by benign violations. The benign-violation hypothesis suggests that three conditions are jointly necessary and sufficient for eliciting humor: A situation must be appraised as a violation, a situation must be appraised as benign, and these two appraisals must occur simultaneously.

Violations can take a variety of forms (Veatch, 1998). From an evolutionary perspective, humorous violations likely originated as apparent physical threats, similar to those present in play fighting and tickling (Gervais & Wilson, 2005). As humans evolved, the situations that elicited humor likely expanded from apparent physical threats to a wider range of violations, including violations of personal dignity (e.g., slapstick, physical deformities), linguistic norms (e.g., unusual accents, malapropisms), social norms (e.g., eating from a sterile bedpan, strange behaviors), and even moral norms (e.g., bestiality, disrespectful behaviors). The benign-violation hypothesis suggests that anything that is threatening to one’s sense of how the world “ought to be” will be humorous, as long as the threatening situation also seems benign.

Just as there is more than one way in which a situation can be a violation, there is more than one way in which a violation can seem benign. We propose and test three. A violation can seem benign if (a) a salient norm suggests that something is wrong but another salient norm suggests that it is acceptable, (b) one is only weakly committed to the violated norm, or (c) the violation is psychologically distant. [...]

We found that benign moral violations tend to elicit laughter (Study 1), behavioral displays of amusement (Study 2), and mixed emotions of amusement and disgust (Studies 3–5). Moral violations are amusing when another norm suggests that the behavior is acceptable (Studies 2 and 3), when one is weakly committed to the violated norm (Study 4), or when one feels psychologically distant from the violation (Study 5). These findings contribute to current understanding of humor by providing empirical support for the benign-violation hypothesis and by showing that negative emotions can accompany laughter and amusement. The findings also contribute to understanding of moral psychology by showing that benign moral violations elicit laughter and amusement in addition to disgust.

We investigated the benign-violation hypothesis in the domain of moral violations. The hypothesis, however, appears to explain humor across a range of domains, including tickling, teasing, slapstick, and puns. As previously discussed, tickling, which often elicits laughter, is a benign violation because it is a mock attack (Gervais & Wilson, 2005; Koestler, 1964). Similarly, teasing, which is a playful, indirect method of provocation that threatens the dignity of a target (Keltner et al., 2001), appears to be consistent with the benign-violation hypothesis. Targets are more likely to be amused by teasing that is less direct (multiple possible interpretations), less relevant to the targets’ self-concept (low commitment), and more exaggerated (greater hypotheticality or psychological distance; Keltner et al., 2001). Slapstick humor also involves benign violations because the harmful or demeaning acts are hypothetical and thus psychologically distant. Slapstick is less funny if it seems too real or if the viewer feels empathy for the victim. Humorous puns also appear to be benign violations. A pun is funny, at least to people who care about language, because it violates a language convention but is technically correct according to an alternative interpretation of a word or phrase (Veatch, 1998). [...]

Synthesizing seemingly disparate ideas into three jointly necessary and sufficient conditions (appraisal as a violation, appraisal as a benign situation, and simultaneity), we suggest that humor is a positive and adaptive response to benign violations. Humor provides a healthy and socially beneficial way to react to hypothetical threats, remote concerns, minor setbacks, social faux pas, cultural misunderstandings, and other benign violations people encounter on a regular basis. Humor also serves a valuable communicative function (Martin, 2007; Provine, 2000; Ramachandran, 1998): Laughter and amusement signal to the world that a violation is indeed okay.

If you can make a case for this, I would be very interested to read it. My current view is that a lot of "good" motivations such as altruism and intellectual curiosity are actually linked to status concerns at a deep level, and since it seems infeasible to get rid of status concerns as a motivation anyway, we should instead try to optimize our social norms and institutions to maximize the good side effects of status seeking, and minimize the bad ones.

I can't really. I think our disagreement is subtle. I'll explain my view and try to pin it down.

What's bad about status is that it may cause us to optimize for the wrong goals, because it may motivate us for the wrong goals. By the time a goal is determined, status already has (or hasn't) done its damage. Given a fixed goal, I would not consider it negative if part of the motivation was related to status.

This means it comes down to preference between two approaches. 1. Minimizing status seeking as motivations to avoid being motivated for the wrong things; 2. Changing the field so status motivations are better aligned with positive outcomes.

If I understood your position right, you think we should do #2. And I think we should do #2. I also agree that overcoming status concerns isn't possible. But the sentence you quoted is still true, at least insofar as it relates to me. For now I'm agnostic as to whether the rest of what I'll say here extends to anyone else.

To explain where I think your model stops working for me, I have to differentiate between the utility function U that I would like to have, and the utility function V that I actually have. The difference is that V makes me play a game when according to U I should rather read a Miri paper. Okay, now according to the master/slave post, the master has "the ability to perform surgery on the slave's terminal values" – but I think it can access only V, not U. Among others, I think the example you give no longer works.

For example, the number theorist might one day have a sudden revelation that abstract mathematics is a waste of time and it should go into politics and philanthropy instead, all the while having no idea that the master is manipulating it to maximize status and power.

I don't think this is possible for me. Big decisions are governed by U; the master doesn't have access.

Now, on LW in particular, I can say with confidence that I'm not here to improve my status. I don't write posts to improve status. But once I have written a post, then at least 70% of my concern goes into how it will make me look; and even during writing, a lesser but still significant chunk goes into that (larger for comments). That seems clearly bad. And I think it's fairly representative of how I work in general. I'm trying to think of an area where status motivates me to do something positive that I wouldn't otherwise do... the search doesn't come up empty, but it's less than your model would suggest. Removing status as a motivation entirely should be net positive.

I'm fairly confident that this explanation is correct, but again don't know it generalizes (actually, the fact that I fully support doing #2 suggests that I don't really expect it to generalize). The boldest thing I'll say is that I'd be surprised if LW didn't work better if status were taken out of the equation. I don't expect activity to drop drastically. The link to intellectual curiosity in particular seems questionable. But I can't make a stronger case for that, at least not yet.

Somewhat unrelated – The Elephant in the Brain suggests that the conscious part of your brain should be thought of as the press secretary, whose job it is to rationalize the things that the rest of the brain decides to do; to come up with bogus explanations for why you did what you did. This is fairly similar to your master/slave model, with the biggest difference being that the press secretary isn't given her own (terminal) values, and the emphasis on rationalization. Obviously, I think the conscious part does have terminal values. I'd take a hybrid of them over each one.