> And it's critical to realize: mocking others for engaging in the Importance Game and the Leveling Game is just a way of engaging in the Importance Game.

I grew up in Los Angeles and now live in Portland, OR. People in LA play the status game rather brazenly and are roundly mocked for it. But the exact same game is played by everyone doing the mocking here in Portland. Except, instead of buying luxury automobiles and extremely expensive clothes, as people in LA do, people here signal status using markers of enlightenment and moral purity such as diet, meditation, political positions, etc.

I’m conflicted. In some ways, I appreciate the honesty of the LA approach. But I also appreciate the more subtle nature of the Portland approach.

I think this gets at something I hinted at in my other post on this thread: It's important to master both the Importance Game and the Leveling Game because they're subgames in the Self-Actualization Game. Both are necessary parts of interacting with people. Mastery of the Importance Game and Leveling Game involves reading the situation: when in Rome, play as the Romans do. The ultimate master of these games can play them effectively in both LA and Portland, but I think realistically, a proficient player chooses which stage in which to play based on their own strengths and goals.

Honesty might seem like an escape from the Importance and Leveling Games: you say the truth, so you're not basing what you say on an attempt to get status, so you've exited the game, right?

Well, that doesn't quite work out in practice: First, you can only be as honest with others as you are with yourself, and being honest with yourself is hard: you just end up playing the games unintentionally. Second, honesty is never complete by the simple nature that you don't have time to say everything, so the things about yourself that you choose to be honest about create a picture that has implications for the Importance and Leveling Games. Third, lying isn't the only way to change what you say: you can change what you say about yourself by changing yourself. If you do different things, you can say different things about yourself without lying, and your actions can be motivated by the Importance/Leveling Games. And as a sub-point of that: being honest is a choice of actions that's usually geared toward winning the Importance Game.

Part of my conflict is that I appreciate the restraint and subtlety of the Portland approach, but I also appreciate the honesty of the LA approach. The compromise I've come to is to acknowledge that I strive to be part of the elite class, but promise myself that I won't be a jerk in pursuit of my ambitions.

I suspect that the honesty/subtlety of the approaches really only is differentiable at the low levels which most people are able to master. If you can't do that you can't play, of course, but being able to do that doesn't really differentiate you.

At the higher levels, I suspect LA involves just as much dishonesty as Portland, and as much subtlety to make those lies work in an environment where brazen-ness is the norm.

When people are locked out of one ladder, they may latch onto another ladder where they can have more success; you can opt into the vegan ladder, zero waste ladder, hippie queen ladder, gangster ladder, slacker ladder, redneck ladder, ad infinitum.

I question whether the described Portland approach is actually subtler. Is it actually? It's definitely more meta. It's definitely less resource-intensive. But in my experience there's nothing subtle about sour grapes.

> I question whether the described Portland approach is actually subtler. Is it actually?

I think it is, FWIW. Nothing about the game is actually spoken aloud; everything is inferred and gathered via subtle clues. In my experience, one major factor that separates the social classes is the ability to notice these subtleties and modify your behavior accordingly.

> It's definitely less resource-intensive.

I'm not sure that I agree. It requires less money. But it requires way more time. And it probably also requires a level of intelligence and mental sophistication that can't really be faked. If you have money, it's easy to just buy expensive stuff. But it's hard to fake an Instagram feed filled with vegan meals, yoga, hiking, political rallies, etc.

Sorry for the unclarity -- when I was referring to resources, I meant physical resources like oil, energy, and metal.

Actually getting money is harder than playing intellectual sophistry. By the fact that you have to deal with the reality, which is more complex than the Portland model of it.

You don’t have a choice but to play, however you do have a choice about which games to play. The only justified game is that of sincere moral virtue; what that means is a deep philosophical issue.