“How To Dress To Improve Your Epistemics” by johnswentworth

When it comes to epistemics, there is an easy but mediocre baseline: defer to the people around you or the people with some nominal credentials. Go full conformist, and just agree with the majority or the experts on everything. The moon landing was definitely not faked, washing hands is important to stop the spread of covid, whatever was on the front page of the New York Times today was basically true, and that recent study finding that hydroxyhypotheticol increases asthma risk among hispanic males in Indianapolis will definitely replicate.

Alas, memetic pressures and credential issuance and incentives are not particularly well aligned with truth or discovery, so this strategy fails predictably in a whole slew of places.

Among those who strive for better than baseline epistemics, nonconformity is a strict requirement. Every single place where you are right and the majority of people are wrong must be a place [...]

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Outline:

(01:54) Coolness = Status Countersignalling

(03:22) How to Pull Off The Clown Suit

(04:45) Looking Good

(06:58) Dressing The Part

(09:21) Beyond Nonconformist Takes

The original text contained 3 footnotes which were omitted from this narration.

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First published:
September 17th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/WK979aX9KpfEMd9R9/how-to-dress-to-improve-your-epistemics

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Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

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