> - if you must ask questions, convince yourself you must not, just figure it out instead

God, this one hurts. In the first couple months at my new role (which I intentionally chose to be one that would stretch and challenge me as I'm looking for some professional growth), a senior member of my team expressed the view that he'd rather someone spend three days researching than ask him a thirty-second question. When I was already insecure about my position in the team and not wanting to appear incompetent, this has ironically sent me into a spiral of being _less_ capable and productive because I'm fearfully avoiding asking for any context or guidance. I'm struggling to break that cycle, but it's hard.

This is closer to my internal thoughts as well, though I would say these thoughts fall more into "avoidant" than "antisocial".

> pivot conversations when someone asks you about something you actually know or are good at, it might be a trick, tell them you're dumb instead

Spot on, can relate to that :)

As others have noted, this is avoidant behavior, not anti-social.

Worth taking a look at the Wikipedia for Attachment styles [1]. The two types are Dismissive-Avoidant and Fearful-Avoidant. Either can be superficially mistaken for anti-social, although Dismissive-avoidant tends to present a bit closer to anti-social.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attachment_in_adults

> I am guessing the author is either criticizing people who are anti-social (in the pop culture definition) or believes he was before and after some thinking arrived at the conclusion that antisociety was not the way. But I don't feel it describes my internal motivations, so I've translated them to my behaviors:

I think there's quite a diversity in anti-social behaviors. He may not be describing you, but he's definitely describing others: difficult, self-centered people, probably with anger problems, isolated (because they're unpleasant to deal with) but not self-isolating.

I think you are mixing up asocial and anti-social. Anti-social basically means you don't care how others feel, their rights and social norms. Asocial means you don't want to engage socially.

And I'm pretty sure you are describing yourself as someone with an inferiority complex and social anxiety.

Strangely I would bucket about half of these in Good or at least Often Useful behaviors.

Good:

- if someone is confusing or upsetting you, assume it is your fault (personal accountability)

- interpret others' actions in the context of your fears (at least having awareness of your fears is step one, step two is reacting healthily)

- assume your assumptions are wrong and that you shouldn't even bother (just delete the "shouldn't even bother" part)

- pivot conversations when someone asks you about something you actually know or are good at, it might be a trick, tell them you're dumb instead (playing dumb CAN be a smart thing, or at least not one-upping someone else nor making them feel small for no good reason)

- if you must ask questions, convince yourself you must not, just figure it out instead (diving into something can prevent procrastination, you can start and ask questions later)

- when all hope is lost in conversation, pretend to take their side to end the conversation ("smile and nod" can be great advice- the pro-social doctrine is "you can't win an argument and keep a relationship at the same time")

Bad:

- dig in your heels at no point in time whatsoever and just tell people the minimum they need to hear so they leave

- do not develop narratives or it means you will have an immediate network

- do not research the acumen or credentials of anyone

- do not grant grace to those who make mistakes, they might actually be wrong and you're not a judge

- do not seek to understand anyone at all

I developed from a very early age a sort of "always assume the worst about yourself" mentality.

I think part of it was influenced by social media (I was a tween debatelord). Part of it was self improvement (only focus on yourself! get ahead! never blame the enviornment!). Part of it was genuinely depressing things in my life.

As an example, I was obsessed with "finding my passion" at some point. Looking back, I was looking for a way to say, "This thing I'm committed to is way more important than all the other things in my life, so I don't need to go do them". As another example, frequently I would go into epistemic spirals - I was aware of psychoanalysis, so clearly there's capability for deep self delusion. But how do I know the navel gazing isn't self delusion? How do I know framing it as "navel gazing" is not an attempt to cope? And infinite recursion ensues. Another example is constantly feeling like I needed to steelman opponents, and so I would do the utmost research and understand the "best" arguments for the opponent's side before responding.

Incidentally, I think this is why I loved computer science so much - because you often proved worst case guarantees. I had a deep disdain for heuristic solutions.

But this mentality is still bad. Let's take the steelman example. How could steelmanning your opponent possibly be a bad thing? Well, are you actually steelmanning them, or are you trying to find some sort of greater upper bound to their argument, then attacking that... for what? Efficiency? Feeling secure in yourself? Why not actually listen to them? Oh, but surely if they accept premises A, B, C, then D, E, F must follow! Do they, though? Is it possible they could not go down that route, and for valid reasons?

It's still a deep contradiction I work through, since to me personally, all of these things invoke a deep "you are not being remotely rational or moral" gut feeling when I do go down those routes. But I know that I need to sit more in grey zones and just.... live in the grey.

(I still love formal computer science and dislike heuristics. But it's much more balanced now.)

Detachment and Flourishing - https://oyc.yale.edu/philosophy/phil-181/lecture-8

I mean, some of these are legitimate stragety to surviving corp America.

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