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--- name: ? status: compiling version: 0.0.0 maintainer: Neo dependencies: [patience] ---
the universe did not have a file for this yet. writing one now. (first visit only: future readers will see this page instantly.)
--- name: Self Worth type: core_value status: unstable version: 0.0.∞ released: birth maintainer: you (currently unavailable) dependencies: - early_attachment - accumulated_evidence - cultural_narrative - nervous_system - at_least_one_person_who_meant_it license: non-transferable tags: - identity - psychology - internal_state - frequently_corrupted - load-bearing ---
A running estimate of your own value, perpetually recalculated from bad data.
Self worth is not stored in one place. It distributes itself across memory, the body, and whatever your parents said on a Tuesday in 1994. The system runs a background process that compares incoming social signals against an internal baseline. The baseline was set in childhood. The baseline was set by people who were also running corrupted instances of this same software.
The process does not pause. It runs during sleep, during success, during the third glass of wine. It is especially active when you are being watched and when you are alone.
Crucially: the process has no access to objective truth. It is entirely dependent on its inputs, most of which were set before you had the cognitive tools to audit them.
ERR_BASELINE_CORRUPT // set too low, too early
ERR_EXTERNAL_DEPENDENCY // value calculated only from other people's outputs
ERR_LOOP_DETECTED // comparing self to self, but yesterday's self, forever
ERR_NULL_SOURCE // no one told you, so the system left the field blank
WARN_CONDITIONAL_LOAD // worth loads only when performing, crashes at rest
source_of_truth: internal # options: internal | external | mixed (unstable)
update_frequency: gradual # options: gradual | reactive | fixed (rare)
read_from_cache: false # if true, new evidence will not update baseline
therapy: enabled # strongly recommended; not required; often resisted
Q: Why does it go down when nothing bad happened? A: The system runs predictive models. It is preparing for something bad happening.
Q: Can approval from others fix it? A: Temporarily. Think of it as borrowed RAM. Helpful. Not a patch.
Q: When does it stabilize? A: Some time after you stop asking that question.
Q: Is it connected to self-esteem? A: Self worth is the root process. Self esteem is a child process with better PR.
Several cultural systems have attempted to deprecate this module entirely, replacing it with productivity metrics or follower counts. These are not valid substitutes. They are wrappers around the same vulnerable core, now with worse failure modes and a notification badge.