PSA to nerds: it's rational to put non-zero effort into fashion

Nerds often fall into the trap of thinking that caring about your looks is somehow unethical.

“People shouldn’t care about what I look like! They should just like me for me and evaluate my ideas purely on their merit”

I used to fall into this camp, but now believe this is misguided. Here’s what changed my mind:

1. It's not actually irrational to care about people's appearance. Fashion contains a lot of relevant information
2. It's human nature to care about people's appearance, and you can't change human nature
3. Even if the first two things weren't true, you have to prioritize the battles you decide to fight

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1)  𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞.

What somebody looks like, especially their fashion, contains a 𝘭𝘰𝘵 of information about them.

I remember once a rationalist event organizer was proposing that people have special bracelets where different beads signalled different things (e.g. romantic availability, open to talking vs not, etc) and I laughed so hard.

That’s what clothing already does! It’s just that some people are blind to its messaging, either on purpose or because of a lack of skill.

Imagine somebody wearing full hippie garb, including multi-color dreadlocks, an amethyst necklace, and a tattoo of chakras down his arm. Imagine he tells you that he read a study saying that there’s a dangerous chemical in the water.

Imagine you hear the same thing, but from a man in traditional academic garb of comfortable shoes, slacks, button-up top, sweater, with short undyed hair.

It is perfectly reasonable to put more credence on the academic-looking man over the hippie-looking man when it comes to studies about chemicals in the water.

Of course, if they share the study and you have the time and inclination to look into it, you should evaluate the study based on its own merits, not the merits of who shared it with you.

But also, the probability that you 𝘴𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 look into it more is also dependent on the person who shared it with you. I have a bunch of hippie friends who I love dearly but whose epistemics are so broken that it would be very hard for them to get me to look into any of their theories because I think it’s just too likely to be wrong and a waste of my time.

This only applies to people you have so far had little exposure to. As you get to know them, you should let that information dominate over fashion. For example, I have some hippie friends with colorful hair who look deeply uncredible to strangers but I happen to know their epistemology is actually pretty good.

However, if you think of your friends and followers as following a funnel, where first they have to meet you or see you, decide whether it’s worth getting to know you and listening to your ideas, etc, then you need to care about that top of the funnel. If people just see you in a youtube thumbnail or see your outward appearance at a party and are deciding whether to approach or not, your looks communicate a lot about whether it will be worth their time.

And if you have a neckbeard and a fedora or have strangely colored hair and a visible tattoo, people will (often correctly), infer a lot about you.

(Interestingly, attractiveness and persuasiveness often come apart here. For example, having multi-colored hair might attract the sort of romantic partner who will like your personality, but is anti-persuasive to the majority of humanity. What I recommend in those sorts of situations is trying to find something that achieves both goals, such as replacing multi-colored hair with a varied wardrobe. Wear eccentric, vibrant clothes at parties, then wear a regular button up on a podcast)

Now, this doesn’t mean you should just dress as attractively as possible. It all depends on your goals. 

Most people have the goal to attract or keep a mate, so attractiveness is a common goal. But there are others. There’s credibility. There’s in-group signalling. There’s comfort and practicality. There’s self-expression.

I remember when I first started working on my appearance, and I found a look that was very attractive but didn’t feel like “me” at all, and it was really uncomfortable. I don’t recommend that. I eventually iterated into something that felt like it authentically represented myself to the outside world while also achieving my other goals, such as attractiveness, comfort, low effort, and credibility.

All this is to say that fashion, because it’s a choice, conveys a lot of information. You can choose it more deliberately and get better outcomes.

𝟐) 𝐈𝐭’𝐬 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐩𝐞𝐨𝐩𝐥𝐞’𝐬 𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐜𝐚𝐧’𝐭 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐡𝐮𝐦𝐚𝐧 𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞

Caring about appearance is to 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦 degree cultural. I think our culture is way less shallow than it was in Victorian times. 

However, we’ve been receiving admonitions from society for ages to care less about appearance and I think we’re as far as we’re going to get.

Which makes sense, because fashion does actually provide information. But also, we’re largely visual creatures and have evolved to pay attention to how people attire themselves. We can’t turn it off, even if we wanted to.

Like, I think that the vast majority of humans could not take Borat in his banana hammock seriously, no matter how good his points were. If he approached you in a conference to tell you some interesting stats about your favorite field, you’d find it nearly impossible to buy it, no matter how good his ideas were otherwise.

𝟑) 𝐄𝐯𝐞𝐧 𝐢𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐭𝐰𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧’𝐭 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐞, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐡𝐚𝐯𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐳𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐦𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐨𝐥𝐯𝐞.

Fighting for people to care less about appearances is not a very high impact cause area and fighting it severely hurts your ability to fight for more important and tractable problems.

Pick your battles. You can spend the rest of your life having a constant drain on your impact and ability to achieve your goals for probably no benefit, or you can focus on things that matter more.

Fashion doesn’t have to take a long time. I limit myself to 5 minutes or less a day, plus once a year or two shopping trip for clothes. Just 80/20 it. Clothing causes “passive beauty” (like passive income, but for looks), where once you buy them, you look better for years afterwards while you wear them.

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