Damn I'd even expect most "cool kids" having more respect for someone better at math (all else being equal), even if their social context won't allow them to show this in any form.

Math, instead, got mostly derision from other kids and little to no respect from teachers or parents. No, "cool kids" never had even an ounce of respect for math nerds. If they secretly had any respect for them, they certainly never showed it.

And what's the point of trying to gain respect that nobody expresses? It's certainly not something that would be worth pursuing just to get that respect.

It sounds like you're tying yourself up in knots to explain something that everybody already understands. Math is intrinsically fun, but only if you can cut through the ruinously bad educational system and the difficulty of getting started.

Intrinsic motivation makes sense to learn about the world to some extent, but there was not much to learn for hunter-gatherers to survive.

Being good at math gives you no status in life. People are proudly anti-intellectual when it comes to math, so the most you'll get if you're quite good at at math is "oh wow, that's cool. next topic". People who really like math, simply like math, despite it not winning them any social favors for the most part.

Mathematics is quite interesting and beautiful in its own way, so for you to say it's mostly "out of wanting to escape their low status" is both rude and uninformed.

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Also, it's true that quitting doesn't do you any favors, but people quit things all the time. Especially math. Or new years resolutions. It's definitely not a tenable argument as to why people would stick with math.

You could just as well argue we're all paper-clip maximizers, and simply interpret any evidence to the contrary as short-sighted. The only sense in which you can reduce everything humans do to sex is in the irrelevant and unfalsifiable sense.

That's correct, but why would that reduce trust?

Our brains evolved to make decisions. Yes, they were constrained by a need to survive and reproduce. But those two goals are not the same thing. And the existence of those constraints does not actually preclude any other mode of operation.

You're being absurdly reductive when you conflate any motivation with a need to reproduce.

This is why your argument is nonsense. You're basically trying to define everything as sex. You're playing a silly word game so you can feel smug about this directionless and immature insight.