syllogism 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: syllogism 08 July 2011 06:33:49AM 8 points [-]

Almost everything's fashionable to someone, somewhere. You can start with a certain in-group and non-conform by deciding to eat meat. You can non-conform out of the gay community by deciding you're actually straight.

The issue of conformity arose in this thread from SarahC's comment:

Honestly, I think the cluster of tech-savvy, young, smart-but-nonconformist types is really winning at the goal of being productive while happy. Not everybody makes it; but I've seen a lot of people have lives more satisfying than their parents ever could. People who've broken the conventional wisdom that you have to put up with a lot of bullshit because "that's life." Mainly, because instead of asking "What is the Thing To Do?" they've got the hang of asking "What is the best thing I could be doing?"

I think this really applies to me. My assessment of my life is that I'm much happier because of these moments where I've exercised even a little bit of courage in the face of social pressure. It wasn't a huge amount of courage, but it was non-zero --- which is more than many people are willing to do. I do believe that being utterly craven in the face of social opprobrium is a common failure mode, and it's an area where rationality pays dividends.