I have a strong aversion to wearing T-shirts with clever slogans. After thinking about it for a couple of minutes, I think the reason is that there’s no good way to filter the message: if a joke falls flat you can avoid making similar jokes, but a T-shirt just hangs around like a dead octopus in a Jacuzzi, slowly growing more awkward and obtrusive.
A LW meetup wouldn’t be the worst place to wear that one, but I don’t think one would be homogeneous enough that I’d actually be comfortable doing it.
I have a similar aversion for similar reasons, and choose to, when possible, display symbolic representations of ideas/groups rather than specific words; group members or people familiar with the same ideas will recognize them, and others won’t.
It would be nice if there were good abstract symbols for LessWrong, rationalism, and/or EA. I’ve gotten good results from symbols for smaller groups (ex. the fandom for the awesome yet moribund MYST series), and it seems useful.
I made a T-shirt with the Pioneer Plaque drawing, and always try to wear it when I’m expecting to meet new people. Those who don’t know what it is will just ignore it, it is unobtrusive and would likely be considered pretty. Those who do recognize it always make a comment.
It might be that I simply have another cultural background from having at a few Chaos Computer Congresses in Berlin. There the strongest clothing choice was a person running around in a Burka with a sign: “You get surveilled, I don’t.”
A T-Shirt with the slogan “keep calm and maximize expected utility” isn’t something that seems awkward or obtrusive to myself.
I generally don’t believe that avoiding clothing that can draw any attention is a good strategy.
I generally don’t believe that avoiding clothing that can draw any attention is a good strategy.
I may have phrased that too strongly. The problem isn’t that besloganned T-shirts carry a message, it’s that that message casts itself too broadly and too obviously to people not in its audience; dog-whistle is common in fashion, but indiscriminate signaling is usually a faux pas. Compare wearing a shirt with a few Western details to showing up in spurs, leather chaps, and a ten-gallon hat.
This is mainly a problem with using text; I wouldn’t find it awkward to wear a T-shirt with the skeletal formula of caffeine on it, or an equation I found elegant. Those would get glossed as meaningless symbols to the uninitiated; I’d look nerdy but not aggressively nerdy.
I would NOT want it on a t-shirt. Kills your expected utility right off.
It’s more that I think the utility of wearing such a shirt would generally be dominated by black swan scenarios such that it’s hard to calculate.
Depends on where you wear the shirt. I think wearing it to a Lesswrong meetup would work.
I have a strong aversion to wearing T-shirts with clever slogans. After thinking about it for a couple of minutes, I think the reason is that there’s no good way to filter the message: if a joke falls flat you can avoid making similar jokes, but a T-shirt just hangs around like a dead octopus in a Jacuzzi, slowly growing more awkward and obtrusive.
A LW meetup wouldn’t be the worst place to wear that one, but I don’t think one would be homogeneous enough that I’d actually be comfortable doing it.
I have a similar aversion for similar reasons, and choose to, when possible, display symbolic representations of ideas/groups rather than specific words; group members or people familiar with the same ideas will recognize them, and others won’t.
It would be nice if there were good abstract symbols for LessWrong, rationalism, and/or EA. I’ve gotten good results from symbols for smaller groups (ex. the fandom for the awesome yet moribund MYST series), and it seems useful.
I made a T-shirt with the Pioneer Plaque drawing, and always try to wear it when I’m expecting to meet new people. Those who don’t know what it is will just ignore it, it is unobtrusive and would likely be considered pretty. Those who do recognize it always make a comment.
It might be that I simply have another cultural background from having at a few Chaos Computer Congresses in Berlin. There the strongest clothing choice was a person running around in a Burka with a sign: “You get surveilled, I don’t.”
A T-Shirt with the slogan “keep calm and maximize expected utility” isn’t something that seems awkward or obtrusive to myself.
I generally don’t believe that avoiding clothing that can draw any attention is a good strategy.
I may have phrased that too strongly. The problem isn’t that besloganned T-shirts carry a message, it’s that that message casts itself too broadly and too obviously to people not in its audience; dog-whistle is common in fashion, but indiscriminate signaling is usually a faux pas. Compare wearing a shirt with a few Western details to showing up in spurs, leather chaps, and a ten-gallon hat.
This is mainly a problem with using text; I wouldn’t find it awkward to wear a T-shirt with the skeletal formula of caffeine on it, or an equation I found elegant. Those would get glossed as meaningless symbols to the uninitiated; I’d look nerdy but not aggressively nerdy.
Eh, maybe if you take it off right after. Even during a meetup it would give off a weird vibe to me.