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GabrielDuquette comments on What is your rationality blind spot? - Less Wrong
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Can't... stop... putting others down... to prop... myself up.
I've banished this mostly to just my thoughts, but it is fractally insidious and emerges in some small way whenever I think about myself in relation to others. It's especially bad when I'm tired and/or hungry and/or meeting new people (especially ones I don't have much in common with).
I'm exhausted by just mentioning it.
EDIT: The upside of this tendency is the fact that I can be really funny in an irreverent sort of way.
If you want to actually stop putting others down to prop yourself up, you should avoid being "really funny" about other people. Don't reinforce your own behavior when you disapprove of it. :/
I want to say that, for a significant fraction of my interactions, I value my ability to be funny more than I value others.
...but I don't know if that's true, or a rationalization. In any case, it's rather vague and demands further consideration. Being funny, for me, is quite wide-ranging and creative and not at all exclusively about denigrating others.
I do know that I have a very small reservoir of other-modeling ability that I save for use with people I've established are good investments -- that is, not likely to unwittingly discourage me from wanting to slowly grow my compassion.
I guess I just avoid most people and keep my mouth shut when I can't.
EDIT: Poor choice of words, sorry. I don't want to say I care less about other people than I do about being funny. But sometimes it's hard to not withhold empathy in general when there isn't much of it to spread around. This may be due to an ironic excess of empathy that I'm just not very good at moderating.