Thanks for posting. It seems like everyone who engages in these activities have unfulfilled desires to be superior than what their actual position suggests or what their trajectory would most realistically lead to.

e.g.

To take the case of the dentist, I imagine New York’s best and/or most respected dentist wouldn’t ever partake as their relative social status is assured already by virtue of their position. It’s the nervous upper middle cohort of dentists that are anxious over their positions in the hierarchy who visit.

And thus spend money on girls, who are likewise in the upper middle cohort anxious over their future, via promoters who are likewise anxious, in clubs whose owners are likewise anxious, looking up to whales who are also likewise anxious, to achieve a kind of sympathetic communal gathering. Commiserating over their inability to displace the multitude of chiefs sitting at the apex of their relevant pecking orders.

But as you said, among the population vying for social status everything in the post-modern world needs to have an ironic appearance, at least superficially, due to the difficulties of resolving status disputes, etc., at the very least to leave a face saving avenue of retreat when status disputes are resolved against them. So no individual in this population can actually admit to desiring such a thing. Thus the curious acrobatics.

The clubs, the promoters, the customers, the girls, even the whales, are all motivated by their anxieties over status uncertainties and thus try to seek the local maxima of satisfaction.

(As a sidenote, it’s especially understandable for individuals two to four standard deviations above the median in terms of intelligence, attractiveness, height, social skills, relative position in the hierarchy, etc.

Due to the maturation process of the human psyche from birth to middle age, as such above average individuals receive regular intimations that they will one day achieve excellence par none when they have no little real potential to actually outcompete those who have yet greater advantages, and even that slim chances vanishes by middle age.)

But this is the expected and perhaps even least bad outcome in the post-modern world comprising of many billions competing for status across a global system who are mutually aware of the fact. As even the population of the truly extraordinary, those 5 deviations above average or greater, comprise many thousands of individuals that cannot ever be displaced like in traditional society with one chief being replaced by another. How could even the most patient dentist, who desires greater social status in dentistry, displace many thousands of ever slightly better dentists without being unusually lucky or competent?

Thus they all ’let off steam’ in simulated status displays and competitions.

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On The Spectrum, On The Guest List: (iii) Etiquette

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