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I went to the 2024 Secular Solstice + Rationalist Megameetup in NYC and noticed the proportion of men / masculine-presenting people with long hair at this event was substantially (>3 stdevs) above the national base rate (1-3% depending on source).
This is not particularly important, but I still found it interesting and wondered why
Hypotheses:
- Coincidence: my sample was anomalous and not representative of the broader rationalist community
- Relative to the rest of the population, people in this community prioritize other things (writing, thinking about existential risk, working on cool projects perhaps) over routine chores (getting a haircut)
- This group has a higher [desire to consciously / tendency to unconsciously] deviate from norms or defaults and this is simply one of the ways it manifests
- This group has higher representation of people from particular population subgroups (cultural, regional, social, etc.) where long hair is the norm / default
- People with shared beliefs and interests will often have similar aesthetic / style preferences (this would explain higher uniformity of appearance, but still not this particular type of uniformity)
Curious if anyone has noticed the same thing or has theories