(: Thanks, Shminux.

I have finally gotten the ass-kicking I needed. Though not especially in my elitism thread, it was spread out... Wedrifid showed me arguments good enough to corner mine. Kindly provided a wonderfully devastating critique of my poll. Gwern's website shows that he's so well-read that I felt like an idiot. Eliezer's "The Magnitude of His Own Folly" depicted a deep acknowledgement of the terrible nature of reality that I found moving because it made him neither paranoid or unambitious - I relate to this but I haven't seen anyone like that before. You always seem to be there to say something snide, making my overconfidence think twice while Morendil typed me up a refreshing batch of sanity.

These are exciting.

I haven't felt so much respect and faith in humanity for a long time.

I was getting apathetic because of it.

Now my self-confidence is right about where it should be.

I decided to commit to reading the major sequences, and I'm considering reading them all. I previously did lots of things like learning about logical fallacies and razing my cached thoughts years ago, so these aren't as dense in new information as they'd be otherwise, but I'm learning to communicate with you guys and I'm enjoying Eliezer's brilliance.