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hedges comments on Rationality witticisms suitable for t-shirts or bumper stickers - Less Wrong
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Comments (83)
Simply as a matter of empirical counter-example, let me point you to the many online tee stores that make an apparently healthy business of selling (among other things) tee-shirts with slogans on them.
Puffy shirts are also worn with beneficial effects by many women - and, if we looked hard enough, a few men as well.
It's not so much what you wear, I suspect, as how and when you wear it that matters; the various communities that one moves in have codes, and there are relatively predictable consequences of going against those codes. For instance, if you work as a trader at a financial institution you incur detrimental consequences by wearing anything other than suit and tie. But successfully flouting these conventions can paradoxically be beneficial; if you break the codes just enough and get away with it you are rising above the herd.
Johnny Depp can wear a puffy shirt because he is the king. The rest of us are probably better off saving our puffy shirts for Halloween.
But yes, what you say is true. If you are awesome enough, you can wear a rationalist slogan t-shirt and make it work.
Special Pleading Objection?
Or if you are attending a Hacker News meetup, or a software development conference, or an event taking place at a university, or... I'll stop there: I am predicting (and happily committing to update if I turn out to be wrong) that in these venues, wearing a witty t-shirt will a) score points and b) optimise for striking up conversations with strangers.
But Johnny Depp is special: he's Johnny Depp. He's an elite. And breaking (fashion) rules may be part of why he continues to be perceived as an elite (I'm thinking particularly of Kleef et al 2011 in http://lesswrong.com/lw/dtg/notes_on_the_psychology_of_power/ ).
i.e., places where people already have some kind of idea who you are. (If you are Johnny Depp, everywhere is a place where people already have some kind of idea who you are, but if you aren't...)
See Things You Can't Countersignal.
That is borne out by my experience, and seems like it more closely matches my social life. It also seems like a better predictor for what sorts of text I find myself noticing on shirts ("noticing" intentionally worded so as to include observational biases).
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean by this. The meaning of my post was that high status folk set the trends, and have an easier time introducing new fashions to the society at large. This was in relation to your (valid) point that "how and when" you wear clothes matters.
Sounds sensible. Dressing in clothes that signal your geekiness (meaning here the demographic you describe) is probably a safe bet in such a crowd.
Pointing out that your argument appears to be a form of special pleading - you introduced a general rule ("wearing puffy shirts is bad"), I pointed out counterexamples (Depp, also women), you picked one of these and said "but he is special".
I see. Through counterexamples we can demonstrate anything to be acceptable fashion in certain scenarios.
The puffy shirt is irrelevant (I feel like arguing but let me try and resist that). I found your counterexamples about t-shirts to be stronger evidence, and I did adjust my beliefs. I can offer you no good evidence on how people on average perceive t-shirts with slogans on them.