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army1987 comments on Things You Can't Countersignal - Less Wrong
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When incomplete strangers - i.e. not literal complete strangers off the street, but people who've been introduced to me by a mutual friend without having any idea who I am - ask about my cryonics necklace, I often lead with, "It's my contract of immortality with the Cult of the Severed Head".
This seems to work fine.
In fact, I strongly suspect it works better than most other cryonics explainers, because I don't sound the tiniest bit nervous. It helps to understand that most people have no independent grasp on reality. I may post about this at some point.
In any case, this is successful countersignalling performed on very loose acquaintances.
Even assuming that your friend had never talked to them about you before (which is not guaranteed -- I can't count the times someone I've just met has told me “you're the one who did $thing? my roommate/sister/fellow $town-er/whoever $name [usually a friend or a former classmate of mine] told me about you” -- and I'm not even Eliezer Yudkowsky), they at least know that you're friends with [the person who introduced you], which provides a lower bound on your level of sanity.
Once in a while, shortly after I've been introduced to someone by a mutual friend, I tell them stuff which would make someone I've just cold-approached freak the hell out (I guess -- I have to extrapolate, as I wouldn't even dream of telling someone I've just cold-approached that [redacted], for obvious reasons), and as far as I can tell they react positively.