I tend to think like that and I tend to see how 1) is indeed a mistake. I would now prefer to be surrounded by brighter people than being the locally brightest. I am not sure I understand 2) and 3) is interesting I am not sure I understand 4) but maybe I can add a 5) it all comes from school socializing us to classroom sizes. We are used to thinking what matters to be the best of the local 30. Lesson: de-schooling, learning how comparisons over 30 people, say, eight billion, work. Our local school brightest would be nobody at MIRI.
We looked at the cloudy night sky and thought it would be interesting to share the ways in which, in the past, we made mistakes we would have been able to overcome, if only we had been stronger as rationalists. The experience felt valuable and humbling. So why not do some more of it on Lesswrong?
An antithesis to the Bragging Thread, this is a thread to share where we made mistakes. Where we knew we could, but didn't. Where we felt we were wrong, but carried on anyway.
As with the recent group bragging thread, anything you've done wrong since the comet killed the dinosaurs is fair game, and if it happens to be a systematic mistake that over long periods of time systematically curtailed your potential, that others can try to learn avoiding, better.
This thread is an attempt to see if there are exceptions to the cached thought that life experience cannot be learned but has to be lived. Let's test this belief together!