In a world full of superficial people there's not much comparative advantage at trying to be better at being more superficial than everyone else. I think it's a better strategy to compete based on personal depth.
Comparative advantage doesn't mean you can neglect something entirely. Personal attractiveness has large consequences on how people evaluate & treat you, and equally so for men and women, it looks like (Langlois et al 2000 (excerpts) claim gender is not a large moderator of beauty effects). Even if Miller goes beyond just dying his hair, he could still be well below optimal.
You can get personal attractiveness through different ways.
I went in three years from being told that I never smile while dancing to being asked why I smile while dancing without being able to give a reason.
It's not because I specifically worked on my smile but because I did emotional work on a deep level.
At a family event yesterday someone told me that I look taller then when we last meet a while ago and I probably do appear taller than I was a year ago because my body language changed as a result of deeper work.
If you become a more happy person who d...
Scott, known on LessWrong as Yvain, recently wrote a post complaining about an inaccurate rape statistic.
Arthur Chu, who is notable for winning money on Jeopardy recently, argued against Scott's stance that we should be honest in arguments in a comment thread on Jeff Kaufman's Facebook profile, which can be read here.
Scott just responded here, with a number of points relevant to the topic of rationalist communities.
I am interested in what LW thinks of this.
Obviously, at some point being polite in our arguments is silly. I'd be interested in people's opinions of how dire the real world consequences have to be before it's worthwhile debating dishonestly.