Let's be honest, your conclusion takes for granted that altruism is the single operating causal factor, and fails to consider that procrastination and Adderall may be alternative causal explanations.

Hehe, all jokes aside, yeah people here are rather lovely. That being said, even from a self-interested amoral perspective positive interactions with your competition might still be the better move...

Suppose I want the best chance of a high score, and this depends very slightly on how well everyone else does. I am competing with everyone, after all.

However, any negativity that I spread on this subreddit, would also inevitably bleed into my own mood to some degree, whether I direct it at someone else or not.

When we say something out loud, we give it energy. So if I'm constantly entertaining negative energy, I'm bound to be on the receiving end of at least some of it, doesn't matter where I aim it.

I think we all have something to gain from being positive and lifting each other up.

Because A) we're also lifting ourselves up! Even if my competition benefits from my good vibes, I benefit from them also--- and I'm still going to bet on myself coming out of that situation the strongest... and

B) it's the clearly better choice between the two available options... I'd rather risk my rival benefiting slightly more from my positivity than risk my negativity hurting my performance slightly more than it hurts my competition.

And just for overkill C) the % of your competition that actually stands to gain or lose from the positivity or negativity of your reddit activity realistically only represents a small % of the total competition. So really it only makes sense to consider the effect it has on you, since no matter what you do, the majority of your competition remain unaffected entirely.

Can you believe I just typed all that? I'm really dreading taking a PT right now lmao.