I’m very competitive and my self-worth is mostly derived from social comparison, a trait which at worst can cause me to value winning over maintaining relationships, or cause me to avoid people who have higher status than me to avoid upward comparison. In reading LW and rationalist blogs, I think I’ve turned away from useful material that takes longer for me to grasp because it makes me feel inferior. I sometimes binge on low-quality material, sometimes even seeking out highly downvoted posts; I suspect I do this because it allows me to mentally jeer at people or ideas I know are incorrect.
I want to share that I have done this as well. In my case, I would be slightly more charitable and claim that the motivation was not to jeer at people who say incorrect things but to derive a feeling that I myself am doing okay. LessWrong has very high standards and there are a lot of impressive people here, which can make it terrifying for those of us who have the deeply rooted instinct to compare ourselves to whatever people we see around us. So if I see something downvoted, it gives me reassurance that I at least must be above some vaguely defined bar.
I want to share that I have done this as well. In my case, I would be slightly more charitable and claim that the motivation was not to jeer at people who say incorrect things but to derive a feeling that I myself am doing okay. LessWrong has very high standards and there are a lot of impressive people here, which can make it terrifying for those of us who have the deeply rooted instinct to compare ourselves to whatever people we see around us. So if I see something downvoted, it gives me reassurance that I at least must be above some vaguely defined bar.