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Comment by jawns | Hacker News Reader

It's true that the average person has a set amount of weirdness points and needs to use them somewhat sparingly.

But there are certain cases where a person might have more weirdness points available to them than the average person and can spend them more freely:

* If you are physically attractive, you often get an extra helping of weirdness points to spend.

* If you are a celebrity or a person with lots of power, you get an extra-large extra helping.

* If you are obscenely rich, you can buy just about as many weirdness points as you want.

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In the words of Terry Pratchett:

'... he can’t be mad. I’ve been around; if a man hash lotsh of money he’sh just ecshentric.'

Weird and poor: you're labeled crazy.

Weird and rich: you're labeled eccentric.

It is a side effect of the "fitness function" evaluation of humans. If a person is "successful" it is taken for granted that they are doing something right even if it is irrelevant. It isn't just wealth that benefits from this - social standing or a respected talent alone can do it.

In another way it makes sense, divergent thinking is tolerated for the very purpose of evaluating how effective new ideas are, and we ourselves tolerate being weird because we believe we can prove something new.

One decides how far to push the envelope and how much they can tolerate seeming crazy. That’s how you earn trust in your judgement.

In a way it makes sense: Someone poor who is strange is a burden on others, which someone rich who is strange isn't, since they can pay for whatever weird thing they do.

If you look at how crime enforcement works against the attractive/popular/wealthy, I think they get far more than an extra helping.

As an attractive, well-liked and reasonably wealthy individual, I consider it to be my moral duty to be weird as hell.

Some of that is a productive of the fact that the justice system is run by humans doing human things. But part of that is the design of our system in that it's designed to protect wealth.

You don’t even need to be exceptionally rich or attractive. Just enough of both qualities, and the ability to surf through your life. Some people have an artistic quality which enables them to be weird, because we have seen them be weird before, and we trust their ability to keep themselves afloat.

This is one of the main reasons I've been doing the entrepreneurial race almost all my adult life. I need to prove myself enough, by accumulating professional success and wealth, to get enough weirdness points to spend so that I can just be myself! It's a sad state of things.

Or make fuck you money with which to purchase the points.

i feel like i'm in the same boat. if i don't suceed in my entrepreneurial labor to make my own (new and unique) path, there's no way i can express myself and be accepted most of the time.

until then, going with someone else means conforming in a way i simply can't, even when i desperately want to.

>When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.

_Hunter S. Thompson

I think this is a very accurate depiction. Also, if you're popular for some reason, you'll get more weirdness points as well.

When I was poor they called me crazy, now that I am rich they call me eccentric.

> If you are physically attractive, you often get an extra helping of weirdness points to spend

I think this shouldn't count - you've just haven't spent some points on being weird lookin'.

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