Will_Sawin comments on A Rational Approach to Fashion - Less Wrong

19 Post author: lionhearted 10 October 2011 06:53PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (95)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Oscar_Cunningham 10 October 2011 10:15:56PM 8 points [-]

Why is this on LessWrong? We already know that looking good helps in many situations. I can find fashion advice by typing "fashion advice"* into Google. Is any kind of post appropriate on LessWrong if I prefix the title with "A rational approach to..."?

*Or "fashion advice for men" if you don't want clothing that's aimed at women.

Comment author: Will_Sawin 11 October 2011 04:50:54AM 12 points [-]

Certain people are very smart and understand why many of the things normal people do are silly in some ways. For instance, judging people based on their fashion sense rather than actual behavior is noisy, or believing that you can do anything you want to do is inaccurate.

But these silly behaviors exist for a reason. Such people, to be successful in life, need to be reminded that just because something is silly from a certain analytical perspective doesn't mean you shouldn't do it, or some variation on it.

Many lesswrong posts fit into this template. They seem useful, and I enjoy them. Such points made in rationalist language cannot be found in many other places.