Nornagest comments on An Outside View on Less Wrong's Advice - Less Wrong

60 Post author: Mass_Driver 07 July 2011 04:46AM

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Comment author: sam0345 08 July 2011 05:21:24AM 2 points [-]

None of these are non conformity: All of them are fashionable signals of officially approved affluent pseudo-nonconformity. For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.

And it simply absurd to suggest that Australian champagne socialists disapprove of hiring domestic help They are always one upping each other on how little housework they do.

Comment author: Nornagest 08 July 2011 05:27:00AM *  6 points [-]

For example, the vast majority of people who claim to vegetarians, are not, but claim to vegetarians for the status.

Got a cite for that? Vegetarianism might be a questionable indicator of nonconformity, but I'd be much more willing to believe that vegetarianism's become common enough in a broad spectrum of subcultures to be disqualified as such than that a vast, or even a simple, majority of professed vegetarians aren't actual vegetarians. Perhaps modulo some wiggle room for culturally mandated meat-eating, like Thanksgiving turkeys in the US.

Now that I think about it, actually, it's a non sequitur either way. The hypocrisy/sincere profession ratio of a feature doesn't tell us much of anything about how acceptable it is in the mainstream: I'd expect many more people to claim to have Mafia ties than do in fact, but membership in a criminal fraternity is almost by definition nonconformist!

Comment author: sam0345 08 July 2011 07:51:27AM -1 points [-]

Got a cite for that?

Merely a personal observation. I do however have a cite for the proposition that vegan is conformity, and omnivory a sinful deviation.

Comment author: Desrtopa 09 July 2011 04:22:25AM 5 points [-]

Citing a source that aims for humor rather than accuracy is a lot more helpful if you're aiming for flippancy rather than credibility.