Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Why is Everyone So Boring? By Robin Hanson, published by Trevor1 on February 6, 2023 on LessWrong.

This is from the blog Overcoming Bias, which many people have heard of but don't know that it's still going and they can read it and recommend it to friends (especially to introduce acquaintances to rationality, which can be used to elevate your status in the average workplace).

If posts from Overcoming Bias aren't supposed to be linkposted to Lesswrong, please message a mod, message me, and/or or delete this post immediately without asking me.

From "Why is Everyone So Boring?":

Centuries ago, while people could rest safe and show themselves at home, when traveling between towns they tried to look either look poor or well-defended, as bandits lay in wait. Even within towns, people without allies who acted unusually rich, assertive, and confident would induce others to try to trip them somehow. It’s the tall poppy that gets cut down, after all.

I propose that the main reason that most of us look more boring in public is that social predators lie in wait there. With friends, family, and close co-workers, we are around people that mostly want to like us, and know us rather well. Yes, they want us to conform too, but they apply this pressure in moderation.

Out in public, in contrast, we face bandits eager for chances to gain social credit by taking us down, often via accusing us of violating the sacred. And like townspeople traveling among the bandits, we are in public pretty vulnerable to the kinds of bandits that afflict us.

If we act interesting, passionate, and opinionated in public, we are likely to seem to claim high status for ourselves, and to touch on sacred subjects, either by word or deed. And this makes us quite vulnerable to accusations of arrogance and violating the sacred.

I see roughly three typical public stances: boring, lively, or outraged. Either you act boring, so the bandits will ignore you, you act lively, and invite bandit attacks, or you act outraged, and play a bandit yourself. Most big orgs and experts choose boring, and most everyone else who doesn’t pick boring picks bandit, especially on social media. It takes unusual art, allies, and energy, in a word “eliteness”, to survive while choosing lively.

Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org.