It seems to me that on lesswrong there is an overemphasis on status as a human motivator. For example, I think it's possible for a scientist to want to make an important discovery not to gain status in the scientific community but for the beauty of knowledge.
It seems it's a similar situation to the 'if you're a hammer you see all problems as nails' kind of situation, where 'doing it for status' is such a readily thought of thing that it gets over applied.
thoughts?
It's certainly possible, but that doesn't mean that status isn't a powerful motivator, and one which we're far more likely to underestimate.
The "hammer that makes you see all problems as nails" bit is a description I've used myself though, in regards to Robin Hanson in particular with his treatment of status and signalling. On Overcoming Bias far more than here I get the impression that a lot of the essays develop out of posing a question and asking "is there a way I can use status and signalling to explain this?"
We're getting late with these ...
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