I'd like an option to hide all karma scores. There's two reasons for this:

• I worry that by seeing the karma of a post before reading the post, I will be unfairly biased toward or against that post. I'd really like to make up my own mind about these things before seeing what the community has decided. I'm pretty sure my opinions change drasticallly based on the opinions of the group I'm in, and this seems counterproductive for rationality (although very useful for social cohesion).

• I'm embarrassed to admit that karma scores affect my emotions a lot. Each time I lose a karma point, it's like an emotional punch in the face. If someone politely disagreed with my post, I would not have this reaction. If someone violently disagreed with my post, I'd either be slightly upset, very amused, or both. But when I lose a karma point, I feel intense shame. Also, when I gain karma, I feel intense pride. When I post here, I feel like I'm talking to "win karma", not to engage in an interesting discussion with thoughtful, intelligent people. This isn't a motivation/reaction I like to have, and that's why I almost never post here, and instead spend all my time on IRC. Basically, because of the karma system, I try not to say anything that might be disapproved of, and I'm reluctant to engage in candid discussion. Those of you who know me on IRC or IRL might be surprised to hear this, because in those situations I almost always discuss my thoughts/opinions candidly without fearing social rejection; in fact, in those situations, I genuinely don't care whether I'm rejected. I don't know why the karma system on LW is so different for me. Anyway, I'm going to try to train my emotional system to ignore karma altogether the way I've trained it not to care about IRL rejection; we'll see how that goes.