radical_negative_one comments on Karma Changes - Less Wrong

2 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 22 December 2009 12:17AM

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Comment author: byrnema 23 December 2009 01:11:29AM *  5 points [-]

I occasionally post despite fears of disapproval, but then immediately after posting my anxiety levels will become so uncomfortably high I delete the comment. Perhaps some people have noticed me doing this, but if they knew how anxious I felt I believe they would understand. It's kind of neurotic...

I also have some social anxiety as well. A usual amount, I think. And then I tell myself that posting on Less Wrong (which is not the 'real world') would be good desensitizing training. I think it has helped some, but occasionally it has the opposite effect. I once had a minor panic attack at a conference moments before giving a talk -- not because of the talk, but because I realized I wouldn't be able to delete a comment or a post I just submitted and thought I might regret.

Incidentally, the chances of me making a comment (and leaving it) doesn't correlate as much with my perceived quality of my comments as much as with my anxiety threshold at that time. Since I'm not very good at gauging my anxiety response, I tend to always rewrite my comments more and more conservatively until the first idea is all but lost. Then I'll submit the comment just because I spent so much time on it.

(Please don't respond that I probably shouldn't bother commenting; I kind of know that. I'm curious if the whole thing improves over time.)

Comment author: radical_negative_one 23 December 2009 02:05:00AM *  4 points [-]

Please don't respond that I probably shouldn't bother commenting; I kind of know that.

If you have a social anxiety problem then i expect that reassurances from a stranger on the internet won't have much effect. But if it's any help, then from a glance at your user overview page it looks like what you say has a generally positive reception. So it looks like you can write here without worrying about disapproval, based on your karma score at least.