5 ms·

The economy of weirdness

57 points by luu 12y ago

civilian 12y ago
I had a particularly bad school switch between the 3rd and 4th grade. Going from a strict private catholic school to the nearby public cool, I was teased a lot. It sucked. At some point "weirdness" just became part of my identity, I embraced it as a shield. Having grown up, I've moved past some of it. I still recognize that I've got an essential core of weirdness. In college I learned about the myers-briggs and, while you can criticize the test all you want, the iNtuitive / Sensing divide is real thing. I'm just an iNtuitive living in a sensor world. I definitely budget my weirdness. I don't care about my clothes, but I recognize that it's good social engineering to look good. I try to be open and friendly to all types of people, especially people who remind me of being an outcast in grade school. But at times I see people who just seem to be... pointlessly wasting their weirdness. They're talented, bright, energetic, and you're spending time praying to crystals? There's so much more you could be doing! I'm really worried about becoming the society that ostracized my past self.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
  > I'm really worried about becoming the society that ostracized my past self. To some extent it would be weird if that didn't happen. So, maybe that means you have a chance?
lotsofmangos 12y ago
Normality is weird. Normally, normal people only have a few normal characteristics, so being completely normal isn't.
- VLM 12y ago
  To extend that concept with her models, there isn't a weirdness economic market, its more like the numerous world financial markets. Weird at gencon, weird at hope conference, weird at work, and weird in the bedroom either have nothing in common or possibly you're living a totally awesome life.
  - lotsofmangos 12y ago
    I guess you could attempt to combine them. Which would probably be awesome, but might cause shenanigans.
bsurmanski 12y ago
I would say that the 'economy of weirdness' is closer to simple supply and demand. Too much weirdness lowers the demand of more weirdness, and thus the 'value' in a given scenario. Weirdness is 'different', and as such requires a certain level of cognitive load to process. Too much weirdness can be overwhelming bordering on abrasive. Looking at it from another point of view, if you have an action movie where it is 2 hours of explosions, you will eventually get bored of all of the explosions. 'weirdness' works similarly. There needs to be some pacing to your weirdness.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  The cognitive load point is extremely important. It isn't that "weirdness is bad" but "your weirdness puts my brain in the position of having to do more work, using up precious fractions of my most limited resource: attention." People radically under-estimate the amount of attention we have available (and are then shocked and surprised when they miss the guy in the gorilla suit.) So on this basis, weirdness is always potentially rude and anti-social, unless it becomes so common that it's no longer weirdness, but just natural variation. It's impossible to be "weird" anymore by simply having tattoos for example (at least where I live) because so many people have them that the presence or absence of ink is recognized as a completely ordinary variation, well within accepted social norms. To be weird, something has to be outside of local social norms, and by definition such things call attention to themselves, each one using up 10 - 20% of other people's extremely limited attentional resources (because we can only pay attention to 5 - 10 things at once.) As such, budgeting your weirdness wisely is simply polite and pro-social. We should be weird in ways that matter to us enough that they warrant the attention they will use up. People will differ on both the kind and amount of weirdness that exceeds this threshold, but the general principle that we should be weird wisely still holds.
  - natural219 12y ago
    This is a great comment. The attention microeconomy explains so much of our social / coordination issues. On a completely separate track, this is sort of the fatal flaw of modern outrage culture -- it refuses to count the cognitive-time-value of being non-offensive to the world's 7 billion population.
natural219 12y ago
Also related: Kevin Simler's take on the concept of Personhood as a sort of contract to encapsulate your own weirdness to function well with the weirdnesses of others. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-more-players/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-m...
- sogen 12y ago
  So true Wow, great writing, thanks for sharing!
javajosh 12y ago
This is fascinating, but difficult to respond to because it is itself a "weird" way of seeing - it is both curiously analytical and vague in it's purpose. Which, ironically (inevitably) is exactly the kind of weirdness I (and many others here) really need to address. Another point entirely missed in this essay is the fact that in general, rare is valuable, not bad. Even if you think the world is made of faceless corporations with insatiable appetite for people who snap together like Lego, there are always a few odd, special-purpose pieces in a Lego set. No, they don't fit in everywhere and you can't make a kit with just them, but they are badly needed.
forgottenpass 12y ago
Did anyone take away a different interpretation of this than thay would have if "weird" wasn't used as a substitute word for violating social norms or "unusual" depending on context? It seemed a bit awkward to read in terms of "weirdness economics" rather than social groups, but I failed to see where the difference was going.
vonnik 12y ago
The weirdest things, like the funniest things, are neither intentional nor the product of conscious effort. They surface despite attempts to suppress them. I'd also argue that weird is not necessarily synonymous with unusual. You can achieve unusual by traveling a little farther along any metric you want, including conventional cool values like athletic prowess or symmetric beauty. Weird is more than unusual. It is the irruption of some aspect of life that gives us an eery feeling. It's Blue Velvet.
anigbrowl 12y ago
Great find, for the rest of the blog as well as the article. I am reminded of Lacan's theory of libidinal economy, with weirdness as an analog or isomorphism to his notion of jouissance.
andor 12y ago
Byung-Chul Han calls this weirdness negativity, contrasting the positivity that is largely replacing it in our societies. Everything that slows down the flow of communication, capital, consumption, information etc. is negative. Positivity smoothes out all negative aspects. In "Transparenzgesellschaft", he argues that too much positivity makes people transparent and controllable, their actions operational. "Agonie des Eros" is about the contradiction of positivity and love. It's the weird, unexplainable things (atopos) that make people interesting. Desire itself is negative. "Müdigkeitsgesellschaft" explains how the positivity of meritocratic societies, vs. the negativity of disciplinary societies in the past, leads to depression and fatigue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han

57 points by luu 12y ago

I had a particularly bad school switch between the 3rd and 4th grade. Going from a strict private catholic school to the nearby public cool, I was teased a lot. It sucked. At some point "weirdness" just became part of my identity, I embraced it as a shield. Having grown up, I've moved past some of it. I still recognize that I've got an essential core of weirdness. In college I learned about the myers-briggs and, while you can criticize the test all you want, the iNtuitive / Sensing divide is real thing. I'm just an iNtuitive living in a sensor world. I definitely budget my weirdness. I don't care about my clothes, but I recognize that it's good social engineering to look good. I try to be open and friendly to all types of people, especially people who remind me of being an outcast in grade school. But at times I see people who just seem to be... pointlessly wasting their weirdness. They're talented, bright, energetic, and you're spending time praying to crystals? There's so much more you could be doing! I'm really worried about becoming the society that ostracized my past self.

0xdeadbeefbabe 12y ago
> I'm really worried about becoming the society that ostracized my past self. To some extent it would be weird if that didn't happen. So, maybe that means you have a chance?

lotsofmangos 12y ago

Normality is weird. Normally, normal people only have a few normal characteristics, so being completely normal isn't.

VLM 12y ago
To extend that concept with her models, there isn't a weirdness economic market, its more like the numerous world financial markets. Weird at gencon, weird at hope conference, weird at work, and weird in the bedroom either have nothing in common or possibly you're living a totally awesome life.
- lotsofmangos 12y ago
  I guess you could attempt to combine them. Which would probably be awesome, but might cause shenanigans.

bsurmanski 12y ago

I would say that the 'economy of weirdness' is closer to simple supply and demand. Too much weirdness lowers the demand of more weirdness, and thus the 'value' in a given scenario. Weirdness is 'different', and as such requires a certain level of cognitive load to process. Too much weirdness can be overwhelming bordering on abrasive. Looking at it from another point of view, if you have an action movie where it is 2 hours of explosions, you will eventually get bored of all of the explosions. 'weirdness' works similarly. There needs to be some pacing to your weirdness.

tjradcliffe 12y ago
The cognitive load point is extremely important. It isn't that "weirdness is bad" but "your weirdness puts my brain in the position of having to do more work, using up precious fractions of my most limited resource: attention." People radically under-estimate the amount of attention we have available (and are then shocked and surprised when they miss the guy in the gorilla suit.) So on this basis, weirdness is always potentially rude and anti-social, unless it becomes so common that it's no longer weirdness, but just natural variation. It's impossible to be "weird" anymore by simply having tattoos for example (at least where I live) because so many people have them that the presence or absence of ink is recognized as a completely ordinary variation, well within accepted social norms. To be weird, something has to be outside of local social norms, and by definition such things call attention to themselves, each one using up 10 - 20% of other people's extremely limited attentional resources (because we can only pay attention to 5 - 10 things at once.) As such, budgeting your weirdness wisely is simply polite and pro-social. We should be weird in ways that matter to us enough that they warrant the attention they will use up. People will differ on both the kind and amount of weirdness that exceeds this threshold, but the general principle that we should be weird wisely still holds.
- natural219 12y ago
  This is a great comment. The attention microeconomy explains so much of our social / coordination issues. On a completely separate track, this is sort of the fatal flaw of modern outrage culture -- it refuses to count the cognitive-time-value of being non-offensive to the world's 7 billion population.

natural219 12y ago

Also related: Kevin Simler's take on the concept of Personhood as a sort of contract to encapsulate your own weirdness to function well with the weirdnesses of others. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-more-players/ http://www.meltingasphalt.com/personhood-a-game-for-two-or-m...

sogen 12y ago
So true Wow, great writing, thanks for sharing!

javajosh 12y ago

This is fascinating, but difficult to respond to because it is itself a "weird" way of seeing - it is both curiously analytical and vague in it's purpose. Which, ironically (inevitably) is exactly the kind of weirdness I (and many others here) really need to address. Another point entirely missed in this essay is the fact that in general, rare is valuable, not bad. Even if you think the world is made of faceless corporations with insatiable appetite for people who snap together like Lego, there are always a few odd, special-purpose pieces in a Lego set. No, they don't fit in everywhere and you can't make a kit with just them, but they are badly needed.

forgottenpass 12y ago

Did anyone take away a different interpretation of this than thay would have if "weird" wasn't used as a substitute word for violating social norms or "unusual" depending on context? It seemed a bit awkward to read in terms of "weirdness economics" rather than social groups, but I failed to see where the difference was going.

vonnik 12y ago

The weirdest things, like the funniest things, are neither intentional nor the product of conscious effort. They surface despite attempts to suppress them. I'd also argue that weird is not necessarily synonymous with unusual. You can achieve unusual by traveling a little farther along any metric you want, including conventional cool values like athletic prowess or symmetric beauty. Weird is more than unusual. It is the irruption of some aspect of life that gives us an eery feeling. It's Blue Velvet.

anigbrowl 12y ago

Great find, for the rest of the blog as well as the article. I am reminded of Lacan's theory of libidinal economy, with weirdness as an analog or isomorphism to his notion of jouissance.

andor 12y ago

Byung-Chul Han calls this weirdness negativity, contrasting the positivity that is largely replacing it in our societies. Everything that slows down the flow of communication, capital, consumption, information etc. is negative. Positivity smoothes out all negative aspects. In "Transparenzgesellschaft", he argues that too much positivity makes people transparent and controllable, their actions operational. "Agonie des Eros" is about the contradiction of positivity and love. It's the weird, unexplainable things (atopos) that make people interesting. Desire itself is negative. "Müdigkeitsgesellschaft" explains how the positivity of meritocratic societies, vs. the negativity of disciplinary societies in the past, leads to depression and fatigue. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han