
Seth Walsh
The man in the mirror is my only threat
Contributor
- Joined
- Jan 12, 2020
- Posts
- 9,355
- Reputation
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I. Looks (Physical Aesthetics)
II. Intelligence (Cognitive Capacity)
III. Status (Social Perception & Hierarchy)
IV. Money (Power & Optionality)
V. Social Dynamics (Relationships & Influence)
VI. Gender & Sexual Selection
VII. Psychology (Human Nature)
VIII. Power (Control & Influence)
IX. Technology (Acceleration & Obsolescence)
X. Mortality (Time & Legacy)
- Baseline social rank is assigned subconsciously within seconds.
- Height, facial structure, skin quality, symmetry, and body composition form >80% of first impressions.
- Most traits are genetically locked; interventions optimize but don’t transcend natural tier.
- Attractive people receive more trust, attention, leniency, and opportunity across all domains.
- Early positive feedback loops amplify confidence and charisma, deepening inequality over time.
II. Intelligence (Cognitive Capacity)
- Raw intelligence (pattern recognition, working memory, abstraction speed) is ~50–80% heritable.
- Education and training can raise performance but rarely overcome low ceiling.
- High intelligence correlates with income, health, and lifespan — but also higher dissatisfaction and alienation.
- Most people overestimate their intelligence; genuine high-IQ individuals are statistical outliers (<2%).
- Intelligence alone doesn’t guarantee success; without social calibration, it often backfires.
III. Status (Social Perception & Hierarchy)
- Humans operate on dominance hierarchies. Status dictates access to mates, resources, and allies.
- Perception > reality: symbols of success (title, clothing, associations) often outweigh actual competence.
- Status compounds: visibility → credibility → opportunity → higher status.
- Low-status individuals are ignored even if correct; high-status ones are followed even if wrong.
- Attempting status neutrality is impossible — hierarchy is embedded in every interaction.
IV. Money (Power & Optionality)
- Wealth is freedom — it buys time, influence, and insulation from consequences.
- Most wealth is inherited or compounding, not earned linearly from labor.
- Capital income scales exponentially; wage income scales linearly and plateaus.
- The first $100k is hardest; beyond that, capital snowballs faster than effort.
- Without ownership of scalable assets (business, equity, IP), lifelong subordination is inevitable.
V. Social Dynamics (Relationships & Influence)
- Charisma is disproportionately rewarded — confidence, pacing, and frame matter more than logic.
- People judge arguments by messenger status more than by content quality.
- Social proof manipulates judgment: perceived popularity signals hidden value.
- Isolation accelerates decline — networks amplify opportunity, protection, and leverage.
- Authenticity is often punished; strategic self-presentation wins.
VI. Gender & Sexual Selection
- Sexual market value is brutally unequal and zero-sum. Top 10–20% monopolize most attention.
- Women prioritize status, resources, and dominance; men prioritize youth, fertility, and beauty.
- Dating apps and globalized competition skew power further toward top performers.
- Male value is conditional (achieved); female value is largely ascribed (youth and looks).
- Romantic idealism masks transactional dynamics — most relationships are implicit exchanges.
VII. Psychology (Human Nature)
- Free will is constrained: personality, preferences, and even “choices” are shaped by biology and environment.
- People rationalize hierarchy rather than challenge it — comfort > truth.
- Happiness is relative adaptation; external gains fade quickly into new baselines.
- Most motivation stems from status comparison, not absolute need.
- Self-help is mostly placebo — structural limits and selection pressures dominate outcomes.
VIII. Power (Control & Influence)
- All institutions protect themselves first; justice and ethics are tools, not principles.
- Laws and norms shift to preserve existing hierarchies, not dismantle them.
- Information control > brute force — narratives shape reality more than facts.
- Revolutions rarely redistribute power; they usually reassign it to a new elite.
- True autonomy requires leverage over capital, attention, or force — preferably all three.
IX. Technology (Acceleration & Obsolescence)
- Most skills become obsolete within decades; adaptability trumps static knowledge.
- Automation erases middle-tier jobs first; extremes (low-skill manual and high-IQ creative) persist longest.
- Digital platforms centralize power — attention is the new oil, and algorithms decide distribution.
- Surveillance capitalism ensures total behavioral profiling; privacy is extinct.
- AI reduces the value of human intelligence — creativity, taste, and capital ownership remain final moats.
X. Mortality (Time & Legacy)
- Life expectancy gains do not change mortality: everyone dies, and almost all are forgotten.
- “Meaning” is an invented coping mechanism to make entropy tolerable.
- Evolution selects replication, not happiness — suffering is a feature, not a bug.
- Time is the only real currency; wasting it is irreversible.
- Legacy fades within two generations; even the greatest names become trivia.