
You have a set amount of “weirdness points” – spend them wisely (2014) - postsantum
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wkuDgmpxwbu2M2k3w/you-have-a-set-amount-of-weirdness-points-spend-them-wisely
======
jawns
It's true that the average person has a set amount of weirdness points and
needs to use them somewhat sparingly.

But there are certain cases where a person might have more weirdness points
available to them than the average person and can spend them more freely:

* If you are physically attractive, you often get an extra helping of weirdness points to spend.

* If you are a celebrity or a person with lots of power, you get an extra-large extra helping.

* If you are obscenely rich, you can buy just about as many weirdness points as you want.

~~~
meddlepal
Weird and poor: you're labeled crazy.

Weird and rich: you're labeled eccentric.

~~~
Nasrudith
It is a side effect of the "fitness function" evaluation of humans. If a
person is "successful" it is taken for granted that they are doing something
right even if it is irrelevant. It isn't just wealth that benefits from this -
social standing or a respected talent alone can do it.

------
leto_ii
A few of my points:

> Recognize you only have a few "weirdness points" to spend. > Spend your
> weirdness points effectively.

True, but it seems to neglect the possibility that your "weirdness" is
actually a coherent worldview that can be advocated for as a whole, not as a
series of disparate ideas. You could therefore be very effective in advocating
for more ideas than your "weirdness" budget might suggest.

> Clean up and look good.

I also tend to agree with this one. Not because I think it's good to push for
conformism in manners or appearance, but because you should be non-conformist
where it matters.

> Advocate for more "normal" policies that are almost as good.

It might be better to set up a roadmap that points to where you would like to
get in the end, while at the same time coming up with tractable shorter-term
solutions. If you simply tone down your proposals completely you might end up
just compromising and not making a significant difference.

> Use the foot-in-door technique and the door-in-face technique.

These techniques do seem a bit manipulative. It might be better to just be
honest and open about what you believe in.

------
bloomer
> Many people think donating 3% of their income is a lot, let alone the 10%

Except of course for many mainstream religions
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithe)
“weirdness” is very relative to your local view.

~~~
Fnoord
Speaking in terms of donating percentages is at odds with reality.

1% of 300 USD is 3 USD, and probably a lot for that person. They're probably
needing every penny they can get to maintain or increase their standard of
living.

1% of 3000 USD is 30 USD, and probably not much for that person. They'd spend
it on a friday night.

Never mind the very rich. For them, the difference between 1% and 10% is
effectively nothing; it doesn't decrease their standards of living.

~~~
loggedinuser
That's why it's better to define the 'tithe' as a percentage of income over
and above strictly required expenditures, i.e. money you otherwise
theoretically could have saved.

~~~
Fnoord
Right, I came to the very same conclusion when I was thinking about this in
the past, but I forgot about it. Thanks for the addendum and reminder.

------
tylermw
And yet, some people are able to live remarkably "weird" lives, influence and
change their communities, and not feel like they have to relegate their
appearance to "bland tech office drone" because they choose to be passionate
about some number of topics and they used up all their "weirdness points" and
have none to delegate to appearance.

Life isn't the Skyrim avatar creator--passion isn't measured in points, and
passion is what begets structural change.

------
kangnkodos
I think "weirdness points" is a subset of a larger idea.

For example Martin Luther King Jr. had great success when he was pushing for
one idea, racial equality. Then a year before he was assassinated, he publicly
turned to a wider range of causes. He came out against the Vietnam War at a
time when most were supporting it. He announced his support for economic
equality. History judged him right, but his timing might have been wrong.

Because of his early stance against the war, he lost many of his mainstream
supporters. His fight for racial equality started to sputter.

Maybe this is an exact application of weirdness points? But it seems like
something bigger is at work here, and weirdness points are a subset of this
bigger idea.

~~~
solveit
A more general (and more mainstream) idea is that of political capital.

------
rahuldottech
I really like this article. I don't know much about the science behind it, but
anecdotally, it makes a lot of sense.

Here's the psychological concept, an interesting read:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiosyncrasy_credit](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiosyncrasy_credit)

~~~
stev0lution
I remember reading about something related to perception (however unrelated to
group dynamics) called "Wundt curve", an attempt to describe the relationship
between the intensity/novelty of a stimulus and its perceived "hedonic value"
(roughly its pleasantness) [1]. I read (in the references here [2]) that the
original source for this result dates back to 1874: "Grundzüge der
physiologischen Psychologie" (Main Features of Physiological Psychology) by
Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt [3]. However, I could not find it in there from a
quick look at the archive.org scans [4], so this might be wrong.

BTW, the first paragraph of Wundt's wikipedia entry was pretty surprising to
me: 'Wilhelm Maximilian Wundt {...} was a physician, physiologist,
philosopher, and professor, known today as one of the founders of modern
psychology. Wundt, who distinguished psychology as a science from philosophy
and biology, was the first person ever to call himself a psychologist. He is
widely regarded as the "father of experimental psychology". In 1879, at
University of Leipzig, Wundt founded the first formal laboratory for
psychological research. This marked psychology as an independent field of
study. By creating this laboratory he was able to establish psychology as a
separate science from other disciplines. He also formed the first academic
journal for psychological research, Philosophische Studien (from 1881 to
1902), set up to publish the Institute's research.'

[1] [https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Wundt-
Curve-1874-lef...](https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Wundt-
Curve-1874-left-shows-the-hedonic-function-used-to-calculate-interest-
the_fig6_220851248)

[2]
[https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/6575/volumes/v13/NA-13](https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/6575/volumes/v13/NA-13)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Wundt)

[3]
[https://archive.org/details/grundzgederphys15wundgoog/page/n...](https://archive.org/details/grundzgederphys15wundgoog/page/n11/mode/thumb)

also somewhat related:
[https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/BF03212593.pdf](https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.3758/BF03212593.pdf)

~~~
yesenadam
Wundt's name pops up constantly in William James' extremely readable
_Principles of Psychology_ (1890). Most of it's what we'd think of as
physiology - how our minds and bodies work together; reflexes, the senses etc.
Stuff that can be measured and tested. A couple of quotes from it:

Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words
as “chain” or “train” do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the
first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A “river” or a “stream” are
the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it
hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of
subjective life. (Vol. 1, p.239, coining of _stream of consciousness_ )

Our natural way of thinking about these coarser emotions is that the mental
perception of some fact excites the mental affection called the emotion, and
that this latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily expression. My theory,
on the contrary, is that _the bodily changes follow directly the perception of
the exciting fact, and that our feeling of the same changes as they occur IS
the emotion_. Common-sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we
meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and
strike. The hypothesis here to be defended says that this order of sequence is
incorrect, that the one mental state is not immediately induced by the other,
that the bodily manifestations must first be interposed between, and that the
more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we
strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble,
because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. Without the
bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely
cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth. We might
then see the bear, and judge it best to run, receive the insult and deem it
right to strike, but we should not actually feel afraid or angry. (Vol2 p449,
this is now called the James-Lange theory of emotion)

------
intrepidhero
The article applies and probably makes some very good points if your goals
include "persuade others to join my cause".

There is a counterpoint to be made for being the person you want to be
regardless how seriously people take you.

~~~
rlonn
I think you underestimate the effects of observed weirdness on the psyche. I
believe most people react to weirdness with caution and suspicion, and
sometimes they get intimidated. I believe that being weird makes it harder to
connect with people in general, and that is a problem unless you're totally
uninterested in socializing with other people.

~~~
intrepidhero
You're not wrong but that's an incomplete model.

Weirdness can open doors to connections people might not have been comfortable
with otherwise.
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson)

I guess my own weirdness is reacting strongly to the conformist message in
this thread.

Know who you are and be comfortable as that person. Using camouflage, or just
keeping your opinions to yourself, are useful skills for getting along with
others. But there is also great value in being true to yourself.

------
bryanrasmussen
this article just is giving me the hives. Unfortunately it's night time, my
son has pneumonia and I have things to accomplish in the next couple hours so
a couple of points:

1\. "Clean up and look good." There is a well known stereotype of programmers
that the ones who are the most scruffy, unhygienic, weird etc. are the better
ones, a popular enough stereotype that Scott Adams made a Dilbert cartoon of
it (which I cannot find right now), there is also a stereotype of artists and
visionaries that they dress weird and look like freaks, thus drawing an
inclination from people to think people who look weird might be real geniuses
worth listening to. I'm not saying look weird in every situation because it
will help you, I'm saying there are lots of situations in which looking weird
enhances your credibility. Personally I hate looking weird (because I think it
smacks of being a poser), although I do have a certain level of scruffy
programmer looks.

At any rate I think we can all name famous programmers who do not seem to have
given a damn about their appearance.

2\. Recognize you only have a few "weirdness points" to spend: so there is
apparently no way to get more weirdness points to spend elsewhere by, for
example, advocating for something weird, pushing it through, having it be a
great success. This is why people who make weird movies that earn lots of
money are never called up by Hollywood again. In conclusion of this point -
David Lynch does not exist and has never had an effect on cinema whatsoever.

3\. Advocate for more "normal" policies that are almost as good: As a general
rule weird things that get accepted and mainstreamed have all sorts of
proponents some of which are weird extremists some of whom are less weird. In
pushing against racism, the more moderate policies were accepted not because
everyone had switched from pushing more extremist views but because the
extremist views existed to make the moderate look good (I believe this is part
of the generally accepted narrative). If everyone pushing for something
currently considered weird moderated their views then the moderated view would
become the new weird. Maybe being the extremist is the best use of your
weirdness points.

This article is just driving me up the wall.

~~~
hyperpape
I can't find it, but when David Bowie died, there was a quote that went
around. The gist was that in the late 60s, Bowie was a weird red headed kid in
a dress. 5 years later, he was a weird red headed kid in a dress and the whole
world was amazed by him.

I think the article is probably directionally accurate about average human
behavior. I'm less convinced it's good advice, or describes an inescapable
trap.

------
motohagiography
The most reliable way I get traction for my ideas is by presenting personally
as over the top fusty and conservative, whereas people come to me when they
need iconoclastic ideas.

I would also say that "looking weird," used to signal you were so good at
something you didn't have to conform, and it imposed the cost on rivals where
they couldn't succeed if they imitated you (the actual definition of a
counter-signal). Weirdness has changed into a survival strategy to avoid
personal accountability. Either because they are so conscientious as to want
to make other people feel comfortable by seeming harmless and incapable of
coercion - or it means what bright colours and displays mean elsewhere in
nature: poison, avoid. Great article, but also surprised how quickly something
from 2014 could date.

Today I would say, the smart money doesn't spend weirdness points, it
leverages them.

~~~
lastres0rt
Something something "blue hair"...

It's not about being weird, it's about being weird relative to the group. If
I'm hanging out with folks at Burning Man, I'm going to look weird if I'm too
"default". If I'm interviewing in Silicon Valley, I'm going to need a shower
and a change of clothes from my Burning Man attire, at minimum -- but a
carefully chosen hint of my Burner affiliation can still work as a
conversation piece.

------
contingencies
_The only normal people are the ones you don 't know very well._ \- Joe Ancis

... via
[https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup](https://github.com/globalcitizen/taoup)

------
Jamwinner
There is no scale of weirdness, and the idea alone is toxic. If you contribute
in a positive way, people accept you, because you have made yourself useful.
Beyond providing value, and not destroying it, 'weirdness' only incurs the
occasional wrath of red tape.

Be weird, or don't. There is no fucking quota.

------
1337biz
Interesting concept but I am sceptical when it comes towards operationalizing
social interactions. From my perspective these operationalizations come from
positions of weakness of charisma and self-criticism.

If someone has very little self-reflection and does not care about others
perception, all those interaction mechanics fall apart. In the end the reality
of weirdness is not about getting 50%+ votes in an hypothetical election from
a randomized crowd but finding those people that are the most attracted to
that weirdness.

------
tjpaudio
This article makes me think of the engineer at one of my past jobs that not
only subsided on the free office poptarts, but also would butter them. I like
to think I am a very open minded person but I had a hard time taking that guy
seriously with anything.

~~~
stronglikedan
Have you ever put butter on a Pop Tart?

It's so frickin' good

Have you ever put butter on a Pop Tart?

If you haven't then I think you should

~~~
mikepalmer
Have to try this now!

------
NikolaeVarius
Weirdness is relative, so its a not-simple problem of figuring out what you're
spending them on

~~~
madaxe_again
I use the weirdness relativity principle to my advantage:

Almost everything that comes out of my mouth/fingers is weird. Usually
radically weird.

When I say something that is _less_ weird than my usual utterances, people sit
up and listen, because I’ve moved their weirdness window so far off into the
wilds that my merely abnormal ideas sound positively sane.

------
sascha_sl
Some people, who's very existence apparently fits into "radical" for some
reason, do not get to pick their weirdness points.

~~~
lambdasquirrel
Grammar aside, I don't know why this was downvoted so quickly. A lot of
hackers were "weird" not that long ago. And we still are.

~~~
anon73044
I overheard a conversation at my local barbershop last week, a technical
recruiter lamenting about how "strange" software developers are.... I
completely understand it, his target demographic being kids fresh out of
University and probably need to exercise their social skills a bit, but the
lack of empathy is what irked me the most.

------
gdubs
“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the
round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re
not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify
them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change
things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the
crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that
they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

— Steve Jobs, 1997

~~~
txru
Particularly in a thread about generating creativity, I think it's important
to attribute sources of creativity correctly. This was not written by Steve
Jobs, it was written by the 'Chief Creative Officer' of Siltanen & Partners,
Rob Siltanen.

At one point Jobs even rejected something very similar to the final ad, saying
"It sucks! I hate it! It’s advertising agency shit! I thought you were going
to write something like 'Dead Poets Society!' This is crap!".

While Jobs shares responsibility for greenlighting this and allowing his brand
to stand on it, he certainly didn't write it and I think it's wrong to
attribute it to him solely. At the very least he should get a group
attribution with many asterisks.

Siltanen article: [https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-
real...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/onmarketing/2011/12/14/the-real-story-
behind-apples-think-different-campaign/#da0939b62abc)

------
CPLX
Counterpoint: [http://www.hartford-
hwp.com/archives/45a/060.html](http://www.hartford-
hwp.com/archives/45a/060.html)

------
gnicholas
There are some cases where more weird is better. I have a relative who dresses
very oddly. She is praised as a fashionista and trend setter, and has a
sizable following on IG. But for me, it's like the Emperor's New Clothes.

I cannot discern any particular design ethos aside from: the
brighter/louder/more garish, the better. For whatever reason, being super
weird works for her, and I assume if she were less weird in this regard she
would be less interesting to her followers.

~~~
sevencolors
Sounds like she's spending her "points" on her style brand.

> I cannot discern any particular design ethos

Sometimes fashion is simply being confident in the outfit you put on. I like
seeing folks in striking outfits choices. I wouldn't wear the same things, but
the boldness I love

------
esch89
Interesting theory. I'd like to add that the higher success rate that occurs
when you focus on one point may not be connected to weirdness.

People have limited headspace and attention spans. Whether your ideas are
"weird" or not, if you try to push too many, you lower the success rate of all
of them.

That's why many brands / marketers choose one or two key characteristics or
selling points. More, and the brand is diluted / the audience gets confused.

------
rjkennedy98
Weird compared to what? Christianity is radically "weird" as is Mormonism or
Judaism. None of what you are proposing to me seems weird at all. It seems
like run-of-the-mill technocratic political policies by people who believe
everything would work fine if they were put in power.

------
JeffL
I wonder if the Libertarian party would be more successful if they chose just
one issue to push?

~~~
thorwasdfasdf
this is a good question. I've always wondered why libertarianism wasn't more
popular. Democrats wants freedom in personal lives. and Rebuplicans favor free
business. Libertarianism combines both of those nicely.

~~~
cc81
When I debate libertarians I've always felt that it has never been really
realistic and I think a lot of people feel that way.

I'm not American but as far as I understand Democrats type of freedom is very
different from libertarians.

------
qntty
Be yourself, man.

------
anewguy9000
too strange to die, too weird to live

------
chrchang523
(2014)

------
ninthcat
> But if you're a guy wearing a dress in public, ... recognize that you're
> spending your weirdness points fighting lookism, which means less weirdness
> points to spend promoting veganism or something else.

Being trans is antithetical to improving the world? Yikes, that's a bad take.

~~~
TomMckenny
I think the article's claim is that bigotry against appearances is so strong
that it uses up people's ability to keep an open mind on any other topic of
discussion. Which is to say, we live in a world at the moment where when
someone meets a transgender person, much of the time the only challenging
topics they can think about are transgender related: for example they will
have trouble concentrating on arguments concerning cryogenics.

Not to say this is a good or fair thing. But if true, it is a data point to
keep in mind and maybe even fix.

So the suggested remedy concerning appearances, has to be re-thought in some
cases.

~~~
throwawayhhakdl
Hm, I think that’s a good observation. Likely rooted in how a lot of our
opinions are consensus based rather than reason based. If a weird person says
something you’ll write it off as them being them. If a normal (or god forbid a
popular person) says it, you’ll probably assimilate it into your beliefs. No
particular bigotry required.

I kind of hate this about human behavior. It’s not easy to suppress. We’re
very eager to parrot opinions on whether things are good or bad based on who
gave the opinion.

