EtA 2020-09-16: ah dang, I just realized I had already asked that question here: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/mengYutEGfzyeA6Xi/what-would-you-do-differently-if-you-were-less-concerned
[Question] What would you do differently if you were less concerned with looking weird?
I can’t answer that without looking weird!
you can create an alt account
I would use the bathroom freely like a guy and go in the bushes or by a tree.
Spend more time dumpster diving (treasure hunting is fun!)
I’d wear significantly less clothing in public.
I’d also work odd hours and not care as much about having a normal sleep schedule.
I’d probably look into brain reading tech, and try to figure out whether I can record my brain state of all times during the day (including when I’m with other people). I’d also write more posts about very speculative cause areas that don’t have much evidence, though my concern here might not be weirdness necessarily but rather that people will judge my thinking quality to he poor or something.
I would wear skirts in the summer.
If I were less concerned with looking sufficiently weird (cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countersignaling) to the pinks/muggles/mehumes/mundanes/proles/masses, I’d likely enjoy popular media more, and probably be closer to correctness on topics where the crowd really is likely to show wisdom.
Oh, did you mean “less concerned that I’d look too weird”? That probably isn’t possible. Cases where I conform to expectations are about trust-earning and making people happy, not about concern with appearances (well, not about my concern. some of my friends and family ARE concerned in that direction, and I include my understanding of their happiness in my utility function).
Also, there are many cases where appearance of weirdness is completely orthogonal to my behavior. I’m trying to optimize things within a multitude of systems, and very often that aligns with “normal”.
I don’t know what fears drive this, but might be weird adjacent: singing in public (I’m a bad singer)