It's funny. I've seen that movie five times or so. But I watched it again a few days ago, and that line struck me, too. Never stood out before.

"Habituate yourself to the mean."

That definitely makes it clear what your intention is.

I'm male and (I think) I tend to apply negative selection when deciding.

It seems that Vaniver and pnrjulius have assumed that you're having trouble picking good dates. If, instead, you are worried about getting picked (or accepted) for dates, then maybe you're on to something. I'd be interested in knowing whether the majority of people accept dates based on a positive or a negative selection process. It may need to be broken down by gender.

(I have a hypothesis that I won't share yet, in case it influences results)

I read that comment as: "I think it's actually doing better than most <gatherings of smart people attempting to reorganize society> (in staying self-aware and not being as socially naive)". Not that it's doing better than Marxists or others in actually changing the world. They obviously did a lot more in that regard than LessWrong ever has (or likely ever will).

I agree that being "approachable" might play in the dynamic, too. Needing help may attract others who can thereby raise their own status by helping you.

I'm just speculating at random now, but the idea has popped into my head so I'll share.

We're adapted to function in small tribes where status may be very absolute and worth guarding on the one hand, and cooperation/helping each-other necessary very frequently. Our modern situation isn't quite the same - I'm completely self-sufficient in the sense that I can participate in formal and impersonal business activities and then purchase anything I need. Most of my friends are the same - if we're out, we pay our own tabs; if we're having a bad day, we try not to spread our contagious bad moods to each-other.

But I've recently been reading Robert Wright's book "Non-zero". He suggests that trading favours with people is a central part of human bonding. We may need to have opportunities to get a feel for each-others' characters by exchanging small favours, before we start trusting each-other with bigger things (Is this person a defector? I'll test that out by exchanging a fairly trivial favour. If they don't defect, I can up the ante. Etc). If that's true, then we're not getting many opportunities to show each-other that we're co-operators, not defectors.

Of course, there used to be two ways of being a defector: 1) ruthlessly cheating for gain, or 2) being an inadequate tribe-member who can't carry their weight. In that sort of situation, requiring help too often would look bad in the same way that someone with bad credit would look to a lender - not someone to do business with. Just as private companies have "optimal debt ratios", perhaps humans do, too. If you're too needy you start to look like bad credit, but if you aren't needy enough, you never get an opportunity to up your credit rating. Perhaps the credit-rating -> status analogy has something for it. And perhaps relative loners like me are too more tuned to the "avoid being perceived as an inadequate tribe-member" logic than is appropriate in our wealthy modern world.

It definitely feels status-lowering to me when I ask for help. Consequently, I very rarely ask for help. However, I've noticed that my friends who do ask for help or do other things that feel status-lowering to me (especially "over-sharing" their feelings) also have more friends and more active social lives than I do.