Coding For Comparison

I’m not sure what parents said to their children before bridges existed—as in, don’t jump off one because everyone else is—but surely they had some way of teaching the value of independent thinking. Then again, the modern world doesn’t just give us new tools like bridges: it also gives us new ideals, like individualism. For most of human history, there was more incentive to go along to get along.

From an evolutionary perspective, each of our lives is an attempt to thread the needle between selfish and group interests. Cynically, we might say that everyone is trying to get away with as much as they can, which is why powerful people act more selfishly. But here's the twist: what we want, as individuals, is deeply shaped by others. Much of our desire emerges from comparison.

Numerous studies have shown that we don't evaluate success in absolute terms, but relative ones. Sometimes the comparison is to our past self—we feel miserable making $100K if we used to make $125K. Other times, it’s social—we feel great making $100K if it’s the highest salary among our friends.

From an evolutionary design perspective, this makes a lot of sense. Relative metrics are much easier to code for than absolute ones. It's more efficient to build a system that says “aim to be as admired as Wanda” than to calculate how many admirers are objectively “enough.” Or “aim to have more things than you had before” than to calculate how many things are “needed.”

Think about it: how could evolution possibly keep track of the optimal number of homes, handbags, lovers, or LinkedIn endorsements? The answer is—it didn’t. It outsourced the calibration to our social environment. Comparison became the shortcut.

Of course, not every biological drive works this way. Hunger and sleep are largely absolute—I don’t feel more tired because my friend slept 9 hours. But for beauty, status, and the endless array of products the modern world offers, relative tracking is the rule.

The final twist is that relative tracking hasn’t merely helped us navigate this world of abundance: it also helped create it. Imagine if every desire were regulated like hunger: you only desired what you needed, and stopped when you'd had enough. In that world, nobody would need a second handbag. Or vacation homes. Or promotions. Nobody would wonder how their spouse compared to someone else’s, as long as their spouse was good enough for them.

But we don’t live in that world. We live in one where sufficiency is constantly subject to change—because the calibration is social, not internal.