army1987 comments on Scientific Self-Help: The State of Our Knowledge - Less Wrong

138 Post author: lukeprog 20 January 2011 08:44PM

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Comment author: [deleted] 03 January 2013 06:53:50PM 2 points [-]

By that logic, if you know people will judge you from the way you smell, you should never use deodorant.

Comment author: DaFranker 04 January 2013 04:24:27PM 0 points [-]

By that logic, if you know people will judge you from the way you smell, you should never use deodorant.*

* To the extent that there is indeed information contained in the smell as MugaSofer already said, and that making a correct judgment of this information is instrumental and valuable (i.e. "Wrong, I think, to a degree depending on how much them being right mattered.").

Comment author: MugaSofer 04 January 2013 04:00:20PM *  0 points [-]

If there is important information contained in said smell (for example, hygiene levels) then masking it would indeed be deceptive. If on the other hand some smells are simply disagreeable on their own, not evidence for disagreeable traits (EDIT: remember, adaptation-executors not fitness-maximizers,) then deodorant is not deceptive.