It wasn't intended as a "reading" of his remarks; it was a statement of my own view, an argument that I was making that was premised on his remarks. I claim it is a contradiction to "look down on them" and simultaneously not wish to change their hobbies. It thus follows from Mass_Driver's remarks that he doesn't "look down on them" -- he can't, because he says he's okay with them as they are!
There may be connotations of "look down on" that we don't share. or there may be other hidden issues, such as the nature of what it means to change opinions. Thus for example, I'd say that I might look down on an adult who thinks that the card game "War" is worthwhile and fun to play but at the same time I might have something resembling an ideological belief that humans have a right to do their own things even if I find them silly. I think that's what Mass Driver was getting at when he talked about egalitarianism.
Again, I don't see how this follows. Is it your contention that if Mass_Driver believed the numbers were more than negligible he would necessarily have used such a person as the example?
He could have avoided all of the biographical that simply didn't impact the point at all. Once you choose to add extraneous biographic details, what those details are reflects pre-existing conceptions.
(Also I don't know why you are now using the term "blameworthy" since no one else has. I'm not sure what precisely you mean by it.)
Less Wrong is as a community extremely nerdy. That's true for almost any definition of "nerd" that captures anyone's intuition for the word. However, to a large extent, many aspects of nerdiness are not connected to rationality at all, even though nerdiness may be associated with more rationality in some limited aspects. For example, fantasy literature is probably not in any deep way connected to either intelligent or rational thinking except for historical reasons.
Yet LW is full of references to science fiction, fantasy literature, anime and D&D. In one recent example, a post started with an only marginally connected tidbit from Heinlein. Moreover, substantial subthreads have arisen bashing aspects of other subcultures. For example, see this subthread where multiple users discuss how spectator sports are "banal" and "pointless". I suspect that this attitude may be turning away not only non-nerds but even the somewhat nerdy who enjoy watching sports, and see it has harmless tribalist fun, not very different than friends arguing over whether Star Wars or Star Trek is superior which has about the same degree of actual value here.
There's a related issue which is a serious point about rationality and human cognition: Our hobbies are to a large extent functions of our specific upbringings and surrounding culture. That some people prefer one form of fantastic escapism involving imaginary spaceships isn't at some level very different than the escapism of watching some people throw and catch objects. Looking down on other people because of these sorts of preferences is unhelpful tribalism. It might feel good, and it might be fun, but it isn't helpful.