If someone on this site did not understand basic algebra, and wanted to talk about it, would you think that would be a valid lw discussion? You write that "Any smart extrovert that I would want to know would not be so easily turned off by social difficulty", but what would you think of a rationality community that had to teach its members basic algebra? And these individuals may be trying very hard to understand it, but they still really struggle. Would you be turned off by their mathematical difficulty?

But algebra is SO EASY, one might say. To many, social skills are easy and math is hard. And I'm not saying that "easy" things should not be focused on on lw, only that lw content is generally "hard", with the conspicuous example of "easy" social skills. (easy meaning much of the general population can do it) Currently the lesswrong community focuses less on algebra and more on social skills because that is the skill set the community needs, but that focus in turn influences what the community becomes. If we accept the current composition of the lw community, which I would warn against as I think it is too homogeneous, then sure, we can deal with the existing needs of the community, ie teaching social skils. But if we are trying to foster exclusively discussions of high level winning, and if we would reject a discussion on algebra as being too easy, we should similarly reject basic discussions on social skills.