I agree that people who want to influence others should avoid having others discount their opinions. I don’t see what your analysis here offers beyond noticing that and the simple fact that people generally discount the opinions of weirdos, though. Notions of weirdness vary a lot. Also, individual instances of weirdness will be visible to different people. Both these strain the idea of having any aggregated measurement of weirdness at all. People’s sensitivity to weirdness also varies, sometimes in complicated ways. Some people are actually more receptive to ideas that sound weird. Other people will believe if someone is both successful and weird they must know something others don’t.
I think our social brains already do a good job of keeping track of all these important details. Trying to consciously score different traits, beliefs, and actions for weirdness seems like a recipe for anxiety and disaster to me. I don’t think it’s worth worrying about. Inauthentic strategies like this are too hard and unpleasant to sustain.
I agree that people who want to influence others should avoid having others discount their opinions. I don’t see what your analysis here offers beyond noticing that and the simple fact that people generally discount the opinions of weirdos, though. Notions of weirdness vary a lot. Also, individual instances of weirdness will be visible to different people. Both these strain the idea of having any aggregated measurement of weirdness at all. People’s sensitivity to weirdness also varies, sometimes in complicated ways. Some people are actually more receptive to ideas that sound weird. Other people will believe if someone is both successful and weird they must know something others don’t.
I think our social brains already do a good job of keeping track of all these important details. Trying to consciously score different traits, beliefs, and actions for weirdness seems like a recipe for anxiety and disaster to me. I don’t think it’s worth worrying about. Inauthentic strategies like this are too hard and unpleasant to sustain.