Weirdness Points

post by lsusr · 2025-02-28T02:23:56.508Z · LW · GW · 1 comments

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Vegans are often disliked. That's what I read online and I believe there is an element of truth to to the claim. However, I eat a largely^[1] vegan diet and I have never received any dislike IRL for my dietary preferences whatsoever. To the contrary, people often happily bend over backwards to accommodate my quirky dietary preferences—even though I don't ask them to.

Why is my experience so different from the more radical vegans? It's very simple. I don't tell other people what to eat, and they don't tell me what to eat. Everyone on Planet Earth knows that there people from other cultures with strange, arbitrary dietary guidelines. And by everyone, I mean everyone.

I read a story about two European anthropologists living among the hunger-gatherers of New Guinea. One anthropologist was French; the other anthropologist was English. Meat was precious in the jungle, so the locals honored the anthropologists by offering them meat. Specifically, a disease-ridden rat, roasted over a fire. The Europeans didn't want to eat that, but they couldn't tell the New Guineans they thought it was gross, because that would be rude. The Frenchman choked down his half of the rat with a forced smile.

The Frenchman's precedent meant that the Englishman would have to eat his half of the rat too, right? Nope. The Englishman simply explained that he and the Frenchman were from different European tribes called "French" and "English", and that the English have a religious injunction that prohibits them from eating rats. Did the New Guinean hunter-gatherers become confused because Frenchmen and Englishmen look the same to them? Not at all. Every group of people on Planet Earth, from the streets of London to the jungles of New Guinea, understands that other people far away are divided into other cultures with arbitrary dietary rules. Fudging the difference between cultural injunctions vs religious injunctions is barely even a lie when you're talking to polytheists. Or atheist Jews, for that matter.

There are a handful of genocidal fascists who will force Muslims to eat pork, but most people aren't that evil. Normal people will respect Muslims' dietary rules, Buddhists' dietary rules, Hindus' dietary rules, Jews' dietary rules, Mormons' dietary rules, Quentians' dietary rules, celiacs and even just picky eaters. Many people hate Muslims, but nobody hates Muslims because they don't eat pork. Many people hate Jews too, but not because Jews refuse to eat shellfish. Quentians aren't even real. I just made that one up.

Why are vegans different? Because vegans don't always stop at "I don't eat animal products." Noisy vegans follow it up with "and you shouldn't either". That's the problem.

Recognize you only have a few "weirdness points" to spend. Trying to convince all your friends to donate 50% of their income to MIRI, become a vegan, get a cryonics plan, and demand open borders will be met with a lot of resistance. But -- I hypothesize -- that if you pick one of these ideas and push it, you'll have a lot more success.

―You have a set amount of "weirdness points". Spend them wisely. [LW · GW] by Peter Wildeford

There's a big difference between you making choices according to your values, and you telling other people to make choices according to your values. If you tell other people they should make choices according to your values instead of their values, then other people won't like you. This isn't because you're being weird. It's because you're telling other people to do things they don't want to do.

I often get my friends to eat vegan food. It doesn't cost me any weirdness points. To the contrary, my friends reciprocate with generosity. Here's how it works. I invite my friends over to dinner. I cook them dinner, or buy take-out. I insist on paying for everything, and refuse their offers to chip in. The food is vegan because I'm the one providing it. The food is tasty because I'm a good cook, because I know what all the good restaurants are, and because I know what kinds of foods my friends like. Do my friends complain that the food is vegan? Of course not. It doesn't even cross their mind. They're appreciative that I'm providing them with a tasty dinner.

When I bring friends to my Zendo [LW · GW], that doesn't cost me "weirdness points", either. To the contrary, it builds my credibility, because I only invite the people who are likely to enjoy it, and I set the right expectations. The same goes for wearing a suit [LW · GW]. I don't imply that anyone else should wear a suit, and the people around me don't imply that I shouldn't wear a suit. Telling other people what to do isn't socially expensive because it costs "weirdness points". It is socially expensive because people don't like it when you tell them to do things they don't want to do.

I am weird in many different ways, but my biggest "weirdness points" expense is wearing ugly-yet-comfortable sandals, because it is impossible to hide the fact that I'm doing it. Friends and strangers aren't bothered by my other quirks, because I don't shove them in their face against their will. I do sometimes persuade people to my way of thinking on issues like The Current War in the Middle East. But only when they're curious.

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1. The details aren't important. What matters for the purpose of this post is that, in practice, it often looks to others as if a vegan. ↩︎

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