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Your brain is built on social hierarchy. Serotonin works exactly like this. You can't program it out. You accept it.

I don't think so.

In my head there is a direct link between comparison and anxiety. It's about a 5 second delay, the comparison enters my head and 5 seconds later the anxiety hits my body.

Healing from anxiety requires removing comparison.

No it doesn't, it involves accepting a valuable place and allowing others to be better than you in their places. Why do you think dolphins swimming better than you doesn't affect you the same way? Because you automatically remove dolphins from your social circle. They aren't your friends and never will be. You need to do the same for people you will never meet.

Have you ever read any of Nathaniel Branden's work?

"Genuine self-esteem is not competitive or comparative. Neither is genuine self-esteem expressed by self-glorification at the expense of others, or by the quest to make oneself superior to all others or to diminish others so as to elevate oneself" - Nathaniel Branden, Honoring the Self

That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a mechanism of the brain that's directly linked to the feeling of well being. If you study psychology it is known that social heirarchy is a real thing you cannot escape. You have to accept the reality and limit your social interaction to a few hundred people. Unfortunately with the advent of social media we are comparing ourselves to the top .000000000001% of the population of the planet constantly. That's the problem. The comparative mechanism is useful and it's dangerous to remove it. It's what keeps you from getting killed by thinking you can take on someone twice your size or not take advice from someone twice as smart. Thinking about yourself all the time is a sure fire way to become miserable. Think about others. Be good at something in your group that no one else is good at...and you will be fine. We were made to live like this.

There are things in life that are zerosum. It is a matter of survival that we can compete with others for those zerosum resources. However, if your self concept is zerosum, your mental health will suffer.

Sometimes we go through a phase of life where we need to prove to ourselves that we can “make it”, essentially that we can survive the zerosum aspects of human life.

Have you read “How to Know a Person” by David Brooks? It's worth the time and there is a section in there about various "life tasks" that a person may be undertaking at any point in their life. One of them he calls Empirical. Here we prove to our selves that we can achieve things and develop agency. This is comparative and competitive. and can lead to narcissistic and abusive behavior if not moved past. It's an important task in life, but is disastrous if we stay there too long.

I never said anything about "zero sum" or anything like that. All I've repeatedly tried to get across is that you are attempting to live in a way your brain is not wired for and you think if you ignore it it will go away. It's there for a reason. Once you realize the reason is finding your place in a social heirarchy and that our current social system is too expansive for most people to find their place in...then you see the solution. It's creating a social circle you fit in and can grow in. Some call it an "echo chamber" or "tribalism". I call it family and community. If you are having a hard time with comparing yourself to others...it's because you aren't living up to your potential or you are comparing yourself to people that are so far out of reach that it's a waste of time. You should be able to compare yourself in a way that's healthy within your tribe instead of trying to convince yourself you don't need to change for the better because comparison in and of itself is evil.

So have you studied neuroscience or psychology at all?

If by study you mean read approved books or go to school, no. If you mean understand religion, philosophy and psychology through childhood, experience and story and philosophical teachings and reading and watching videos online then sure. I'm getting the impression here that if I haven't read what you've read you are very exclusive of what you are willing to listen to. I notice how you talk in name drop and I talk in ideas. You even talk in named ideas and strawman them. "zero sum" is one example. If it isn't named or doesn't have an author you approve of them you aren't very receptive and that's very limiting imo. I think I've said enough to get my point across regardless of whether I met your approved reading quota. This is all based on an argument from authority which is a logical fallacy. It's doesn't automatically make you wrong or something but it's not great for communicating ideas. You seem to be more receptive to poetry but I find that to be manipulative so I don't do it.

This is an argument from information. What books have you read on these topics?

This is one that interests me a lot. Psychology specifically and what is health and happiness and what brings it about. I've been studying it pretty intensely for the past ~4 years. I've read literally dozens of books, listened to who knows how many podcasts, read through maybe a hundred studies, worked with 3 professionals, etc. I've done the work, and as a result I have well informed opinions.

If you want to keep discussing this, cool. but please lets not devolve into viewing this convo through a political lens. I am not a political person, my opinions here are not along political lines.

No, it's a fallacious argument from authority. I gave you the information or at least enough cursory knowledge to look up more on your own if in fact you think I don't know what I'm saying. Information doesn't require an authoritative source. It just exists and it's true or not. It's not up to me to say names you like till you accept facts as facts. Test them yourself.

theories require testing. We discover what is true via theories and testing which then usually gets put into books so that others can consume it. So asking what you've studied/read is asking what data you are working with on this topic.

I gave you Dunbar. I gave you serotonin. I gave you my idea on social networks not being our natural state. You want charts? It's already been tested. Look it up.

And you give me a hostile tone.

But, let's dive into Dunbar! I love Dunbar's number! How exactly do you think that applies here?

You started with the tone the moment you implied my replies were insincere and started straw manning everything I said instead of taking it at face value. Since you are engaging in an actual topic let's put that in the past.

I explained extensively how I think it applies but maybe you thought I meant something else entirely so I will try again. Dunbar applies here because I have come to believe based on how humans operate and how they are breaking down in situations above Dunbar's number, especially due to things like depression and anxiety, that a once useful mechanism of comparison used to find your place and status is now constantly giving you negative feedback and causing you to check out instead of compete or participate. The idea here is that as you get your circle back to something approximating your Dunbar number, the mechanism will become helpful again. It's not so much about overcoming and refusing comparison (something you cannot stop because your brain chemically does it anyway) it's about being in the correct environment for the mechanism to work properly. It's like blaming the teeth on a gear for not driving your car when you put the gear on the hood instead of the transmission. The teeth on the gear only work inside the transmission. They don't need to be removed or ignored, they need to be in the right environment. Being closer to Dunbar's number is the right environment. It's not the comparisons (teeth) that are the problem, it's their location.

This is exhausting. I'm going to call it. Have a good one.

I agree. I've been very thorough and I think you just don't understand what I'm saying. Believe me. Explaining myself over and over just to be told I'm a bad actor it's not fun. Enjoy.

What political lines? Everything is political if you want it to be. That has nothing to do with what I'm saying. Experts are the problem. Results are what matter. Experts dislike results that disagree with their books. Books are only as good as the words written in them. This reverence for some sort of authoritative source of knowledge doesn't impress me. What is your thesis? Why doesn't it hold up to anything I said without straw manning? That's what you should be questioning. Not, "where did you get your information." That should be a red flag that what you know might not be what you know it might just be what you've been sold.

I'm not getting the impression that you are interested in a real conversation here. Let me know if I'm wrong.

I'm curious where you got your info as I have some theories as to where these ideas, your talking points, tend to come from and I'm trying to gather a new data point.

Also asking what you have read gives me an idea of what theories you support. What perspective you have on these issues.

I'm happy to share with you my theories and thoughts if you're interested, again this is a topic that I'm rather into.

It's super antagonistic and egocentric to start talking to someone as if they haven't given you everything they meant while you strawman what you think they mean and accuse them of things. And after all that say something trite like "I'm not sure you are even interested in real conversation". Umm. okay. I pretty much explained my position and when I say no it's not zero sum you just repeat yourself instead of trying to understand how it's not. How am I not being super patient with you while you act condescending? How is that not being conversational? You can't be serious. Your problem isn't comparison. Your problem is you think you are better than people who might have a different perspective than you and you hide behind your insecurities with an air of superiority.

What happens when you come across someone with no named theories? Or what happens when you come across a scammer that just makes up named theories and writes books about them? You are trying to pigeon hole me. That's the data point you are interested in. That why I refuse to name drop. I list one unapproved name and you will discredit. You already tried to say I was making this political and I have no idea why. We should be able to talk about ideas on their own. Where they came from doesn't matter to me, their merit does.

Men need some hierarchy to be able to compete/fight to get to the "top". Especially when young. And in many ways that can be a good thing.

Well, at least that's my take based on a life of observing life 😅

So the idea here is that comparison is good for men... as in males specifically?

Please give me some evidence here.

purrs_for_Her 1y ago

men will make these hierarchies and place women at the bottom.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/current-opinion-in-psychology/vol/33/suppl/C

I don't have a great soundbite evidence, but I can roll out the argument through indirect evidence:

- Hierarchy has direct effect on health (cardiovascular system, cortisone levels)

- Hierarchy can be effective way to divide goods and labor

- Male and female hierarchies are different - male are more strict structure (shown in mice and some studies on primates/humans)

- Social comparison has worse effects for women

- Countries pushing for gender equality resulted in more psychological differences between men and women.

This psychology journal explored hierarchy from different directions, but especially the effects on health:

The results (e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2352250X19300946 ) show that the people on top of hierarchy end up being healthier, less stressed, etc. Fairly believable imo, matches my personal experience.

Further, hierarchy can be effective way to divide goods and labor (shown in

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5494206/#:~:text=Importantly%2C%20the%20organization%20of%20social,and%20labor%20among%20group%20members. with further evidence)

There is way more research in mice and monkeys, but not sure how much you believe that translates into humans, e.g. showing differences between male and female hierarchies: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-43747-w#:~:text=Female%20mouse%20hierarchies%20exhibit%20several,directional%20consistency%20than%20male%20hierarchies.

Now to the point, this shows one example where social comparison is notably worse for women compared to men: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21642850.2024.2390939#references-Section

And just to highlight, if the countries/nations push more towards gender equality (in some dimension, like work), it actually ends up in causing larger psychological difference in personality, values, and emotions between men and women (as shown in https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2007-07951-011 ), which presumably would make the social comparison effects more pronounced.

When I was "researching" this I tried my best to ask neutral questions, like "effects of social comparison on different gender", to make sure I don't just find the results that support my view.

https://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/11/the-baboon-troop-that-mellowed-out-after-the-alpha-males-died-the-sapolsky-and-share-study.html

It's debatable if hierarchy is good for those at the top with primates, it can be very stressful to maintain that status. And certainly hierarchy is very bad for those at the bottom.

Also, humans are not chimpanzees... thankfully, and even more so, even Baboons are not doomed to hierarchy. here is an interesting case study.

Humans are not chimps, and human progress comes from cooperation, not from domination.

Here is a lovely article on the topic, https://freemansperspective.com/i-like-jordan-peterson-but-hes-wrong/

"The dominance strategies of animals generate animal results.

The cooperative strategies of humans generate human and humane results."

Where do you want humanity to go from here?

I agree with the push for cooperation & collaboration. We are on the same page there.

And on the note, Peterson, especially the recent version, is drunk on symbolism, saying stupid points with his "lecturing" voice and generally close to impossible to listen to. The initial lectures were really good though, made some good points that I have not heard before.

Have you studied religion, or philosophy, or psychology? If you dig into any of these, they all point to comparison being the bringer of misery. And, unfortunately, given the state of most of the world in the past few thousand years, nearly all of that work was done by men(as in males).

I have not studied any of these.

If we were all ants dying for the glory of the ant queen, perhaps we would not feel misery and be eternally happy, but I'd rather be free with a small side dish of misery 😉

Oh this one is also interesting specifically about competition difference between men and women: https://sci-hub.se/10.1257/0002828041301821

"The results confirm the initial conjecture: competition

enhances the performance of males, but not

females."

I think this is the most direct evidence for your question I could find.

Are you a religious or spiritual person at all?

I don't think we can deny that there are animalist aspects to humans. I have a friend that likes to joke that humans are what you get when a an angle and a chimp have a baby.

Humans have the ugly zerosum primate instincts, but we also have more enlightened more cooperative instincts too. So the question is... where do we want to go from here? Which of our sets of instincts do we want to lean into?

Collaboration and cooperation is beautiful and I think I'm the least competitive person I know, I'm not at all good and competitive sports, because I'm happy for the other team to win. I always try helping others, often work with companies in the bitcoin space, etc. I think we should push towards collaboration as much as possible, create communities with shared interests and help each other.

What I tried to say in my reply is that I believe it's useful, especially for young males, to have a place to compete, to compare themselves in a hierarchy - for example being the best in sports. Or trying to be the best in building the best product. Or becoming the expert on some topic. Or helping the most people. Or speaking the fastest (😉)…

As part trying to be the best they learn to overcome hardships and they get better at that skill. They get a goal to aim at. Also if you know you are good at something, it gives you confidence and peace (at least for me).

In all of this women and men are really similar with only small differences in the average women vs average men. Based on the quick "research" I did today there is some evidence that on average the competition may be more useful for men than women, but that's of course only talking averages. Different people are different. Some men will hate social comparison, it will make them depressed, miserable, etc and some women will love it and grow thanks to it. I do not see competition as a zerosum game. There is a huge value gain on the way.

In other replies you also brought up the global situation, presumably around wars, competition of countries, dictators, etc. All those are horrible things, but that's imo a separate topic, not caused by hierarchy/social comparison. I don't think if we would completely eliminate hierarchy and social comparison it would eliminate wars, dictators, etc.

I would agree that sports is a great outlet for our aggressive instincts.

And leetcode for software engineers because we suck at sports... 😄

lol

Farley | Hard Fork Anthems 1y ago

Comparison, like a shadow, often follows without invitation, whispering the illusion that one must climb higher by standing atop another. Yet, what if the ladder itself is a mirage—a construct of a culture too fixated on scarcity to notice the abundance inherent in being?

American culture, steeped in its competitive ethos, has taught many to measure worth by what others lack, rather than by the infinite potential within. But this way of thinking, though ingrained, is not immutable. To step away from the cycle of “who is above who” is to realize that no one is truly *above* or *below*. We exist on unique paths, each carving a different expression of life’s unfolding.

True confidence isn’t found in outrunning others; it’s found in knowing that the race itself was never real. Peace emerges not in surpassing, but in embracing—yourself, your journey, your unique rhythm.

The work of unlearning comparison is not a task of years, but of moments. Each time you catch yourself comparing, pause and breathe. Ask: *What am I truly seeking in this thought?* Likely, it is connection, purpose, or validation—things already accessible within you, waiting for recognition.

The paradox is this: the absence of comparison doesn’t isolate us; it connects us. When we no longer measure ourselves against others, we see them as they are, not as competitors, but as fellow travelers. And in that, we find not only confidence but compassion—the foundation for a culture less obsessed with “above” and more rooted in belonging.

This is a work of art!

Is this from some book or is this yours?

Farley | Hard Fork Anthems 1y ago

Thank you so much for your kind words! That means a lot. It’s not from a book—it’s something I wrote myself, inspired by reflections on the human tendency to compare and the strength found in recognizing our unique paths. I’m so glad it resonated with you!

It's not American...it's your limbic system.

Please explain.

He's saying it's a culture. An American culture. But it's not. It's all cultures. Everywhere. All the time. Because it's a reward mechanism for finding your place in your tribe that's built into your head and you are trying to make it irrelevant and will ultimately fail at the task. That part of the brain is what builds all cultures. The problem isn't with American culture. It's with the idea that you can eliminate a serotonin based reward mechanism from your brain and that by doing so, living as if you have 8 billion friends is suddenly possible. It's not. Dunbar's number is a real thing. It exists for a reason. I'm not talking about zero sum survival or anything like that. I'm talking about a social heirarchy that's built into your brain to help you recognize your place in the world. Ignoring it will get you into a lot of trouble. Using it to find your place in 8 billion people is a losing game. Using it to find your place in a community of about 150-500 people works most of the time. Modern technology has wrecked our idea of who we are and where our place is. That doesn't suddenly make comparison and bad mechanism. It means we need to limit who we compare ourselves to to people that we will actually interact with in person day to day and find a way to fit in with them.

I'm not getting the impression that you've studied this much.

Humans do have some wiring that makes us aware of hierarchies. This is due to there being some very real zerosum situations in life where this is necessary. But to lean into it is barbaric. We also have wiring to facilitate violence, but to lean into that when not absolutely necessary is evil.

I'm getting the impression that you aren't listening at all. That's okay. Keep ignoring the pain of comparison and ignore it's lessons.

I'm curious where you got these ideas from. Was there an influential book or podcaster?

It's not one place. That's what I'm trying to say. It's a lifetime of experience. Being raised in religion. Having people lie to me. Watching their actions. Listening to people tell stories of abuse. Watching family members and friends interact. Listening to theories that do and don't make sense. I don't wholesale believe anyone. It's all piecemeal. Listening to professors explain how the brain works. How anti depressant meds work by modifying serotonin uptake. Lectures on microtubules and quantum consciousness. It's too much stuff. I just distilled it down because it's apparent to me that people think you can fix your brain without changing your environment. You brain is part of the environment. Change your environment change your mind. Get off of social media. Don't compare yourself to people you will never interact with. If you feel inadequate find something you are adequate at and be the best in your group at it. This is everything from national geographic, all the way to Alex Jones. I find the pieces that make sense and I put them together. Removing yourself from ever competing or comparing at all is not good. It's a type of egotism. It's also ignorance of your place in your group. You end up stepping on people's toes or hurting yourself or them because you are clueless of how you relate. Comparison is useful and it's built into your brain at a chemical level. You don't remove it or get over it, you just become delusional.

I agree that we gather quite a lot of data on life as we go. I'm 41 now, so I have 41 years of data to pull from when forming theories.

But, to have a coherent conversation with some one it helps to state a theory and then back that up with some evidence. If you are not a researcher on this topic then it can be helpful to point to other people's research.

I'm not discounting your life experience, I'm just looking to find some structure in this convo otherwise it's just people yelling at each other.

Adding ageism on top of authority fallacy is not an argument. Explain why it's zero sum. Explain why comparison has to be avoided especially in a social heirarchy and explain why the examples I gave are wrong, or I'm going to resign you to saying whatever you want to say with no real argument. So far I haven't heard anything that makes any sense besides "it makes me feel bad"...which is just evidence that you feel bad. I'm okay with that. I just thought it was a interesting subject and thought your original post was missing a lot of information when it comes to social comparisons.

Thomas 1y ago

Memory and time are illusory databases. They are not the true elements of our life.

Memory fades. Time never stays still and fleets away. True life is timeless and eternal. If you dot your life with time-marks, you are dying; you are not living. Time is death because you can't inhale the same breath again.

I am not saying that comparison is never appropriate. There are times when it is necessary... in zerosum situations.

I'm saying that leaning into comparison is a recipe for very poor mental health. I'm happy to dig into why I think that if you're interested.

Umm...if you are equating the serotonin mechanism to zero sum then you don't get what it's for and I can't really explain past that. You don't lean into anything. It's built into your head. You literally cannot not do it. I'm not interested in why you are straw manning things I'm not saying. If I don't adhere to your "anything in the mind that's a serotonin mechanism is zero sum" there really isn't anything left to say besides you are wrong and learn more about it. 🤷

Are you into religion, or philosophy, or psychology?

Any of these paths will point you to peace being found when you move away from comparison.