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I think this is the way to go. Armies historically bestowed titles, fashion accessories, accolades, and other conspicuous signals of status in order to direct human behavior toward an intended aim. The Boy Scouts used to do this to much success. The most popular RPG games do this, and it works because people can immediately see your status, and this feels satisfying even when it occurs in a totally virtual world with no influence on real life. Reddit does this, the world of finance does this. Literally the most addicting activities incorporate this feature. Paul, when motivating Christians, tells them to seek the heavenly crowns and prizes, and Jesus promises that the one who overcomes will sit on a throne, working with this same instinct.
(It looks like I stole Yarvin’s substack post in the OP quote, but I promise I did not; maybe we both read something that inspired a similar thought)
I didn't think you did. Your line of thinking matches up well with the app idea regardless. I do think that specifically engineering status symbols in group hierarchies is crucially important, and something almost no major groups do now! Quite strange.
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