Humans are primates. Primates are social.

Primates have evolved a particular tendency to cheat. We look at others and how they're feeling, and we unconsciously guesstimate that this has to do with their value in the group.

This is quite literally imprecise, inaccurate, and unfair, yet like many biases, fallacies, and prejudices, it's a shortcut that can work some of the time. That it can sometimes work is used, when it's questioned, to justify all the times it doesn't. The usual term for this kind of response is "rationalization."

One adaptation to this unconscious, apparently evolved bias is to tell everyone that they should be confident. If they aren't confident, we say, then they will be mistreated. If they are confident, they will much more often get what they want in society and life.

And so most people adopt this confidence ethic and do what it takes to seem and feel confident. Even if they're reluctant at first, when they see how well it works, they're converts.

But it goes a step further. This isn't just helpful advice for getting by in an imperfect world. And the faults of the people who unfairly mistreat the unconfident aren't just brushed aside. No, it's worse.

See, because confidence is now an ethic, you are seen as shirking your psychosocial duties if you are not doing whatever it takes to seem and feel confident.

In other words, the rationalization for mistreating unconfident people just got worse. Now we're not only ignoring the unfairness of the primate cheat that looks to how a person feels to tell us their value in the world. We're also saying that if you don't respond to that unfairness by "working on yourself" until you are confident, then everything that happens to you as a result is your fault.

I'm not sure why this was obvious to me in 2nd grade when two or three of my classmates spent a while berating me for my lack of confidence as an explanation for why seemingly everyone in the class - including, frankly, them - seemed to dislike me.

It was obvious then, the cognitive mistake they and society were making.

And it's obvious now.

Why am I one of so few who can see this clearly, still?

Am I wrong, or are people rationalizing a bias en masse and blaming the wrong group for the problems it causes?

(Balancing refutation point: yes, research shows that insecurity can put up defense mechanisms and heighten biases. Meanwhile, limited confidence, or humility, or self-compassion reduces one's defensiveness and so increases the accuracy of certain kinds of perception, simply by helping with openness. And so there may, arguably, be a responsibility of some kind - adjusting, however, for mental health difficulties - to adopt this relatively objective frame of mind where possible. But it's an oversimplification to call modest confidence more objective across the board; every frame of mind will be good at some sorts of patterns. And in any case, to police others' mental states through social mores is dubious at best. We can give advice without judging those people who can't or won't follow it. The inside of everyone's mind should be as free as possible from external prohibition.)

How about instead of unaccountably avoiding or ignoring people who seem needy, desperate, insecure, or creepy, you tell them specifically what you're perceiving?

And how about instead of getting insulted and badmouthing a person who tells you something like this, you thank them and think about it?

When people complain about narcissists, they're usually (without realizing it) complaining about the other 3 parts of the dark tetrad: machiavellian, psychopathic, sadistic.

It's ironic. Narcissistic, by itself, is the least objectionable of these, yet it gets by far the most airtime.

That's weird.

Maybe we should fix that.

Something you learn when teaching is that most people do not remember most of what they hear. Even when someone appears to understand, even when they're able to apply what they've just learned and solve problems correctly, they will most likely forget. Often a week later they have little to no memory of it. I've often been told by a student that this is the first time they're hearing something I told them the week before. It isn't my memory versus theirs; I have notes as well.

You should factor this in when you call people insensitive or mean for not understanding your life or the struggles you face.

You should also factor this in when people tell you about things they face. In all likeliness, you will not understand or remember much of what they tell you unless you make specific efforts.

Pet peeve: "one of the better [...] ever made." This I'm sure sounds sophisticated to the person who wrote it. But to me, it just sounds like mincing words. If it's "one of the better," it's probably "one of the best." If it isn't, don't say "ever made."

Reviewers have a habit of saying "one of the better" when they don't want to lose credibility by geeking out. The aloofness could work, but when you send mixed messages like mutilating "one of the best ever!" into "one of the better ever!" you lose credibility with an unforced language error.

If more or less anyone else would say "one of the best" and you're saying "one of the better," ask yourself if your words will end up sounding churlish or like a backhanded compliment. Downgrading enthusiasm doesn't automatically upgrade your status or discernment, especially when doing so flips the message on its head unintentionally.

If you want to say something more refined than "one of the best," how about changing more words than just "best" to "better," hm?

Sometimes I wonder what's distinct about my approach to life. After all, I feel... out of alignment with how things are usually done. And of course it is no one thing that defines anyone. I'm a person, not an idea.

But here's one effort, in a nutshell:

I believe there is a game humans have evolved to play. Largely it is a social game based on instincts about hierarchy and trust and what to believe.

I believe many of these instincts are out of date and have a tendency to hold us back as a group and even as individuals.

I don't have a word for this belief, but let's call it anti-instinctualism, or psychosocial skepticism.

To look at one aspect of it in practice, I feel I am not very "successful" because I don't believe in the metric. I could be living my life for material and social success, and if I were, my life would look radically different; I choose otherwise. Others see me as not very successful and assume I am trying and failing to succeed on that level. Even I have a tendency to believe that, in that I have the usual human psychosocial quirks. When I have access to money, I feel better. When I am broke, I feel worse. A smile from a pretty person can change my afternoon. When others agree with me, I feel good. When others disagree with me, I feel bad.

When people talk about "not caring what anyone thinks," I think they are also trying to get past this primitive hierarchical psychosocial programming we've all inherited.

That isn't the way I prefer to think of it, but I understand.

I think my skepticism runs deeper and is more nuanced.

It is, for example, why I refuse to unfriend people when friends get in fights. No one's insults or punches will be reversed by a Facebook unfriend from me. I am skeptical of the common, impassioned assumption that ostracism is the best move for virtual bystanders. I think in most cases it does nothing useful, only cut off lines of information and reinforce preexisting attitudes. If someone gave me evidence contradicting this, I would look into it with fascination and would quite likely change my view. But people don't, because they are not operating on evidence, it seems. It seems they are operating on instinct - instinct that I consider outdated and all too often unexamined.

Those are a couple examples of "psychosocial skepticism."

I don't think our evolved instincts are good enough. I think we need to look at them more carefully and more often and talk about them better.

That's a way I'm different, and even a reason I might seem "off."

For me, "doing my best" means second-guessing and often disagreeing with what seems unexamined and harmful, even if it seems to upset others that I pull on these threads. I believe - rightly or wrongly - that I am helping, in my own little way, to make the world a better place.

I often wish I had a different message than whatever it is I'm saying that day.

But something I've learned is that we don't necessarily choose our messages. Often they seem to choose us.

What is making you uncomfortable for everyone's overlooking it?

Now, did you choose that?

If you're quite wrong about it, did you choose to be quite wrong? Was that your preference? Did you know?

The best we can do is try to disprove what we have to say.

This is odd because it means that when we have something to say, we go through a process to shut ourselves up first.

If it's worth saying, not everyone agrees yet.

If not everyone agrees yet, someone's mistaken.

If someone's mistaken, that could be you.

If it isn't you, then you've got something to be grateful for, and a reason not to be too shitty to someone mistaken.

All this seems perfectly obvious.

Oh, I exaggerate: I also have some questions and am not sure.

There is a kind of Zen to maintaining unsureness over everything.

Any time you stand up, you know you could fall down. Any time you take a breath in, you know you might never breathe in again. These are not too threatening. You recognize them so often that they're commonplaces.

There's this culture of people dating and then never talking to each other again, or at least treating each other as if they are less than real people.

I understand there are several reasons for this. It isn't some random configuration of habits that occurred senselessly. There are times when this makes sense.

However, I just do not think that way myself. I don't feel that way. I find it very difficult to accept a worldview like that.

I get attached to people quickly, and I care about them, and I always will.

There is no one I've dated - and no one I've wanted to date - who I would decline to talk to, or not genuinely wish a wonderful life.

That's me, I guess. Maybe I've also been lucky.

I just do not - nor will I ever - see people as disposable.

We often think of a gut feeling as for or against, but let's be honest, our guts often tell us two or more things at once. We think A is a great idea (our gut is saying so), but our gut has doubts and thinks maybe B is better and A is a big mistake.

Whichever way we go (assume there are only two), we can say "I knew this was a good idea!" if it works well and "I could feel in my gut that it wasn't right" if it doesn't.

There's a bit of an optical illusion.

The illusion comes from superstitition - from the idea that our gut, or our instincts, or our intuition, or what have you, knows the right answer ahead of time, and we just have to read the tea leaves of the soul correctly to know.

That ain't how it works.

Listen, we don't actually know ahead of time.

We're gadgets with multiple sensory inputs and multiple processing centers in competition for attention and access to the controls.

ANYTHING we decide, some of us had other ideas.

ANY TIME we are right, some of us had doubts, though those areas may have been asleep.

When we got things wrong, some of us could have told us so, but they might not actually have understood any better.