Concise Summary简洁概述
Asch's conformity experiments show that having even one ally makes nonconformity far easier. But someone has to be first — and that first person faces not merely disapproval but outright incomprehension. Yudkowsky distinguishes joining a rebellion (scary but legible) from leaving the pack entirely (terrifying because there is no ready-made script for what you are doing). Using cryonics as his example, he argues that the fear of thinking really differently is deeper than the fear of death itself — probably an evolutionary relic. The essay closes with a warning: being genuinely iconoclastic is not a virtue to cultivate for its own sake, since dissenting too easily is as much a bias as being too conformist.
阿希从众实验表明，哪怕只有一个同盟，不从众就会容易得多。但总要有人第一个站出来——而那个第一人面对的，不仅仅是反对，更是彻底的不理解。Yudkowsky 区分了「加入一场反叛」（可怕，但有据可循）与「完全离开群体」（令人恐惧，因为你正在做的事根本没有现成剧本）。他以冷冻保存为例，论证说「真正想得不一样」的恐惧，比对死亡本身的恐惧更深——这很可能是进化留下的遗迹。文章最后发出警告：真正的标新立异本身并非一种值得培养的美德，因为过于轻易地异见，和过于顺从一样，不过是另一种偏差。
Infographic信息图
Rebellion vs. leaving the pack
反叛 vs. 离群
Joining a known rebellion is scary but legible; people know the role. Doing something for which no script exists triggers incomprehension, not mere disapproval.
加入一场已知的反叛令人害怕，但有迹可循；人们认识这个角色。做一件根本没有剧本的事，换来的是不理解，而非仅仅是反对。
The clown-suit feeling
穿小丑服的感觉
Lonely dissent doesn't feel like wearing black to school (a legible pose). It feels like wearing a clown suit — bizarre, without a social script.
孤独的异见不像穿黑衣上学（那是一种有迹可循的姿态），而像穿着小丑服上学——怪异，没有社交剧本。
Cryonics as the test case
冷冻保存作为试金石
Explaining vegetarianism is uncomfortable; explaining cryonics is met with Huh? Are you crazy? — that gap measures the extra terror of real novelty.
解释素食主义令人尴尬；解释冷冻保存换来的是「什么？你疯了吗？」——这个差距度量了真正新颖事物带来的额外恐惧。
Evolutionary roots of conformity-fear
从众恐惧的进化根源
Going it alone in ancestral environments was likely a death sentence. We carry that fear forward — more people go skydiving than sign up for cryonics.
在远祖环境中独自行动，很可能是死刑判决。我们把那份恐惧一路带了过来——选择跳伞的人远多于报名冷冻保存的人。
Dissent is not a virtue
异见本身并非美德
Dissenting too easily is a bias just like over-conforming. If you are genuinely iconoclastic, you must effort in the opposite direction to avoid dissenting for its own sake.
过于轻易地异见，和过于顺从一样是一种偏差。如果你天生标新立异，你必须在相反方向上付出努力，以避免为异见而异见。
Detailed Summary详细概述
The Asch Baseline
Yudkowsky opens by invoking Asch's famous conformity experiments: a single dissenter dramatically reduces the rate of "conforming wrong answers." Crucially, he notes in a footnote that subjects in the one-dissenter condition reported strong feelings of camaraderie with the dissenter — yet denied that the dissenter had influenced their own nonconformity. Individualism feels heroic when you have company. The two of you are lonely rebels against the world — and it feels glorious.
First vs. Second
But someone must be first. The second dissenter steps into a role that already exists. The first has to say black is black after hearing everyone else — one after another — say black is white. That, the experiment confirms, is a lot harder. Yudkowsky crystallises the difference in a single image: joining a rebellion is like wearing black to school; lonely dissent is like wearing a clown suit.
Legible vs. Incomprehensible
Wearing black to school signals Outside the System — but in a highly legible way. Teachers and peers know the role. They may disapprove or roll their eyes, but they know how to relate to you. They don't have to think any thought they haven't thought before.
Real courage, Yudkowsky argues, is braving outright incomprehension — doing something for which no social script exists. His example is cryonics. Vegetarianism is uncomfortable to explain in most social settings; people may disagree, but they understand the territory. Cryonics earns Huh? What do you mean, brain information? Are you crazy? People don't hate you for a rebel; they just think you're weird and turn away. This prospect, he claims, generates a far deeper fear than ordinary social disapproval.
The Evolutionary Explanation
Yudkowsky offers a tentative evolutionary-psychology account: in a hunter-gatherer band, leaving the group entirely was probably a death sentence — at least reproductively. We don't reason this out explicitly; that's not how evolutionary psychology works. But the legacy is legible in behaviour: far more people go skydiving (facing physical death) than sign up for cryonics (facing social incomprehension). The fear of thinking really differently is stronger than the fear of death.
"And that's not even the highest courage. There's more than one cryonicist in the world. Only Robert Ettinger had to say it first."
Scientific Revolution
To become a scientific revolutionary you must be the first to contradict what everyone around you believes. No one can try to be a revolutionary; you can only get there by pursuing correct answers, wherever they lead. If, after absorbing all existing knowledge, the pursuit of mere correctness takes you into genuinely new territory — then you have an opportunity for your courage to fail.
The Warning
Yudkowsky closes with a double caveat. First: courage is necessary but not sufficient. Walking off a cliff takes courage, and you'd still go splat. The fear of lonely dissent hinders good ideas, but not every dissenting idea is good. Second — and more personally — he admits he is a genuine iconoclast (his serious conversations were with books), but argues that if you, too, find dissent easy, you need to effort in the opposite direction to compensate. Dissenting too easily is as much a bias as never dissenting at all. "It's not a virtue — just a bias either way."
阿希实验的基准
Yudkowsky 以阿希著名的从众实验开场：一个异见者就能大幅降低「从众式错误回答」的发生率。他在脚注中特别指出：一异见者条件下的被试报告说，对那个异见者产生了强烈的同志感——却否认异见者的存在影响了自己的不从众行为。当你有人同行时，个人主义感觉是英勇的。 你们两个人是孤独的反叛者，对抗整个世界——感觉无比荣耀。
第一个 vs. 第二个
但总要有人第一个站出来。第二个异见者踏入的是一个已经存在的角色。第一个异见者，是在听完所有其他人一个接一个地说黑是白之后，开口说黑是黑。实验证实，这要难得多。Yudkowsky 用一个意象提炼出这种差别：加入反叛就像穿黑衣上学；孤独的异见就像穿着小丑服去学校。
可识别的 vs. 无法理解的
穿黑衣上学，传递的是「体制外」的信号——但方式高度可识别。老师和同学们认识这个角色。他们也许不赞同，也许翻个白眼，但他们知道如何与你相处。他们无需思考任何此前未曾思考过的想法。
真正的勇气，Yudkowsky 论证说，是直面彻底的不理解——做一件根本没有社交剧本的事。他的例子是冷冻保存。在多数社交场合解释素食主义令人不适；人们也许不同意，但他们理解这片领域。冷冻保存换来的是：「嗯？什么叫脑信息？你疯了吗？」人们不是把你当叛逆者仇恨；他们只是觉得你奇怪，然后转身走开。他认为，这种前景引发的恐惧，远比普通的社会反对深刻得多。
进化的解释
Yudkowsky 提出一个试探性的进化心理学解释：在狩猎采集的群体里，完全离开群体很可能是死刑判决——至少从繁殖意义上讲。我们不会显式地推理这一点；进化心理学不是这么运作的。但这份遗产在行为中清晰可见：选择跳伞（面对物理死亡）的人，远多于报名冷冻保存（面对社会不理解）的人。「真正想得不一样」的恐惧，比对死亡的恐惧更强。
「那甚至还不是最高级别的勇气。世界上不止一个冷冻保存倡导者。只有罗伯特·艾廷格才不得不第一个说出口。」
科学革命
要成为一个科学革命者，你必须是第一个与你周围所有人的信念相矛盾的人。没有人能尝试成为革命者；你只能通过追求正确答案而抵达那里，无论它把你带向何方。如果在吸收了所有既有知识之后，对「单纯的正确性」的追求把你带入了真正的新领域——那么，你就获得了一个让自己的勇气失败的机会。
警告
Yudkowsky 以双重警示收尾。其一：勇气是必要的，但非充分的。走下悬崖需要勇气，你照样会摔死。对孤独异见的恐惧妨碍了好的想法，但并非每一个异见的想法都是好的。其二——更出于个人——他承认自己确实是一个真正的标新立异者（他认真的对话对象是书，不是其他孩子），但他论证说：如果你也发现异见很容易，你就需要在相反方向上付出努力来补偿。过于轻易地异见，和从不异见一样是一种偏差。「这不是美德——只是方向不同的偏差而已。」
FAQ常见问答
What is the practical difference between joining a rebellion and lonely dissent?「加入一场反叛」与「孤独的异见」在实践中有什么不同？
Joining a rebellion means stepping into a role that society already understands — even if it disapproves. Lonely dissent means doing something for which people have no ready-made script: they don't hate you for a rebel, they just think you're weird and stop engaging. The fear of the latter is structurally different — it is the fear of incomprehension, not disapproval.
加入一场反叛，意味着踏入一个社会已经能够理解的角色——哪怕它不赞同。孤独的异见，意味着做一件人们根本没有现成剧本的事：他们不是把你当叛逆者仇恨，他们只是觉得你奇怪然后停止互动。后者的恐惧在结构上不同——那是对不理解的恐惧，而非对反对的恐惧。
Why does Yudkowsky say the fear of thinking differently is stronger than the fear of death?Yudkowsky 为什么说「想得真正不一样」的恐惧比对死亡的恐惧更强？
He points to the behavioural evidence: far more people go skydiving (risking physical death) than sign up for cryonics (risking social incomprehension). He offers an evolutionary explanation — in hunter-gatherer bands, being driven out alone was probably a worse outcome than death in a hunt. That ancient pressure still shapes our intuitions even though it no longer applies.
他指向行为证据：选择跳伞（冒着肉体死亡的风险）的人，远多于报名冷冻保存（冒着社会不理解的风险）的人。他提供了一个进化层面的解释——在狩猎采集的群体里，被独自驱逐出去，很可能比在狩猎中死去更糟糕。那种古老的压力至今仍在塑造我们的直觉，尽管它早已不再适用。
Does the essay argue that being an iconoclast is admirable?这篇文章是在论证标新立异是值得钦佩的吗？
Not straightforwardly. Yudkowsky warns that lonely dissent is one of the most faked characteristics around — everyone wants to believe they are a rebel. He ends by noting that if you genuinely find dissent easy, you need to compensate in the opposite direction, because contrarianism for its own sake is a bias just as much as conformism. The point is to pursue correct answers, not to perform nonconformity.
并非如此简单。Yudkowsky 警告说，孤独的异见是被伪装得最频繁的特质之一——人人都想相信自己是反叛者。他最后指出，如果你天生就觉得异见很容易，你需要在相反方向上补偿，因为为了对立而对立，和顺从主义一样是一种偏差。重点是追求正确答案，而不是表演不从众。
What is the connection to scientific revolutions?这与科学革命有什么关联？
Yudkowsky argues that to be a scientific revolutionary you must be the first to contradict what everyone around you believes — the ultimate form of lonely dissent. Crucially, you cannot try to be revolutionary; you can only get there by doggedly pursuing correctness. Being revolutionary is an outcome, not a strategy. And even then, it just creates the opportunity for your courage to fail.
Yudkowsky 论证说，要成为科学革命者，你必须是第一个与周围所有人的信念相矛盾的人——这是孤独异见的终极形态。关键在于，你无法尝试去成为革命者；你只能通过执着地追求正确性而抵达那里。成为革命者是一个结果，而非一种策略。即便如此，它也只是创造了一个让你的勇气失败的机会。
What role does the Asch experiment play in the argument?阿希实验在论证中扮演什么角色？
It establishes the psychological baseline: social proof is powerful, but a single ally breaks it dramatically. This makes the first dissenter's position stand out even more sharply — they face not just group pressure but the complete absence of any reinforcing signal. The footnote adds irony: subjects with an ally denied that the ally influenced them, revealing how little we perceive our own social dependencies.
它建立了心理学基准：社会认同是强大的，但一个盟友就能显著地打破它。这使第一个异见者的处境更加突出——他们面对的不只是群体压力，还有任何强化信号的完全缺席。脚注增添了一层讽刺：拥有盟友的被试否认盟友影响了他们，揭示出我们对自身社会依赖的认知是何等薄弱。
Is the evolutionary psychology explanation presented as established fact?进化心理学的解释是作为既定事实提出的吗？
No — Yudkowsky explicitly frames it as a tentative post-hoc hypothesis: "I'm tempted to essay a post facto explanation in evolutionary psychology." He is offering a plausible mechanism, not a proven causal account. The observable behavioural evidence (skydiving vs. cryonics sign-ups) is presented as the primary datum; the evo-psych story is speculation about its origin.
不是——Yudkowsky 明确将其定性为一种试探性的事后假说：「我忍不住要尝试一种进化心理学的事后解释。」他提供的是一种合理的机制，而非经过证明的因果叙述。可观察到的行为证据（跳伞 vs. 冷冻保存报名人数）是主要依据；进化心理学的故事是对其起源的推测。
In-depth Analysis · Pros & Cons深入解读 · 优缺点
"Lonely Dissent" sits in the How To Actually Change Your Mind sequence and functions as a phenomenological map of social fear. Its primary contribution is not an argument but a distinction: the qualitative difference between legible rebellion and genuine novelty, and why the latter is so much harder to bear.
《孤独的异见》位于「如何真正改变想法」系列中，其功能是对社会恐惧的现象学绘图。它的主要贡献不是一个论证，而是一个区分：可识别的反叛与真正的新颖性之间的质性差异，以及后者为何如此难以承受。
- Phenomenologically precise现象学层面的精确The clown-suit image viscerally captures a feeling that most readers have experienced but rarely articulated — the terror of incomprehension rather than disapproval.「小丑服」这一意象，以直觉层面捕捉了大多数读者曾经体验却鲜少表述过的感受——那是对不理解而非反对的恐惧。
- Behavioural evidence grounds the claim行为证据为论断提供根基Rather than asserting the fear theoretically, Yudkowsky points to concrete behavioural data: skydiving participation vs. cryonics sign-ups. This makes the argument empirically anchored, not merely rhetorical.Yudkowsky 没有仅仅从理论上断言这种恐惧，而是指向具体的行为数据：跳伞参与者 vs. 冷冻保存报名人数。这使论证在经验上有所依托，而非纯粹修辞。
- The self-implicating conclusion涉及自身的结论Yudkowsky applies the lesson to himself: admitting he is a natural iconoclast and therefore needs to work in the opposite direction. This move is both intellectually honest and rhetorically disarming.Yudkowsky 将这个教训应用于自身：承认自己天生标新立异，因此需要在相反方向用力。这一举动既智识上诚实，又修辞上解除武装。
- Connects individual psychology to scientific progress将个体心理与科学进步相连接By tracing lonely dissent all the way to scientific revolution, the essay elevates a personal emotional experience into a civilisational bottleneck — giving the fear a proper weight.通过将孤独的异见一路追溯至科学革命，这篇文章将一种个人情感体验提升为文明层面的瓶颈——赋予了这种恐惧应有的分量。
- The legibility spectrum is underexplored可识别性的光谱未被充分探讨The essay treats "legible rebellion" and "incomprehensible novelty" as a binary, but in practice there is a continuous spectrum. Many unusual positions (e.g. effective altruism, polyamory, libertarianism) sit at intermediate points where people half-understand, partly scripts exist, and the experience is neither "clown suit" nor mere black clothing. The binary framing obscures the more common, murkier middle.文章将「可识别的反叛」与「无法理解的新颖性」视为二元对立，但实践中存在一个连续的光谱。许多不寻常的立场（如有效利他主义、多元关系、自由意志主义）处于中间地带——人们半理解、剧本部分存在，体验既非「小丑服」，亦非单纯的黑衣。这种二元框架遮蔽了更常见的、更模糊的中间地带。
- Evolutionary speculation does a lot of unearned work进化推测承担了过多未经验证的工作The hunter-gatherer story is flagged as speculative but still provides the explanatory backbone. There are alternative mechanisms (e.g. identity threat, cognitive dissonance, status anxiety) that could equally explain incomprehension-fear without invoking ancestral band dynamics. The essay's conclusion doesn't depend on the evo-psych story being true, making it potentially misleading scaffolding.猎人-采集者的故事被标记为推测性的，却仍然提供了解释性的骨架。还有其他机制（如身份威胁、认知失调、地位焦虑）同样可以解释对不理解的恐惧，无需援引远祖群体动态。文章的结论并不依赖于进化心理学故事的真实性，这使它成为潜在误导性的脚手架。
- Conflates two different kinds of first-mover difficulty混淆了两种不同的先驱者困难Being the first to publicly advocate something (cryonics, heliocentrism) is a social courage problem. Being the first to discover something is primarily an epistemic problem. Yudkowsky slides between them — using the social fear story to frame what is ultimately a point about epistemic courage in truth-seeking. The two challenges are related but not identical, and conflating them overstates how much social fear is the binding constraint on scientific progress.第一个公开倡导某事（冷冻保存、日心说）是一个社会勇气问题。第一个发现某事主要是一个认识论问题。Yudkowsky 在两者之间滑动——用社会恐惧的故事来框定一个最终关于追求真理时认识论勇气的论点。这两种挑战相关但不相同，混淆二者夸大了社会恐惧对科学进步的约束程度。
- The "correct answer" criterion is underspecified「正确答案」标准未被充分说明Yudkowsky says you can only reach revolutionary territory "by pursuing the correct answer in all things." But how one identifies the correct answer — especially before consensus exists — is precisely the hard problem. The essay gestures at epistemic virtue without giving actionable guidance, which means it can too easily become a flattering self-description for people who are merely contrarian.Yudkowsky 说，你只能通过「在一切事情上追求正确答案」才能抵达革命性的领域。但如何识别正确答案——尤其是在共识形成之前——正是那个困难的问题。文章指向认识论美德，却没有给出可操作的指引，这意味着它太容易成为单纯持对立意见者的奉承性自我描述。
A compact, vivid essay that names something real: the qualitative difference between performing rebellion and genuinely departing from consensus. Its phenomenological precision is its main contribution. Read alongside its self-aware closing warning — that easy dissent is itself a bias — it avoids the trap of romanticising nonconformity. The weaknesses are real (binary framing, underspecified epistemics, evolutionary speculation) but they do not undermine the central distinction, which stands on its own behavioural evidence.
一篇简洁生动的文章，命名了某种真实的东西：表演反叛与真正偏离共识之间的质性差异。其现象学的精确是其主要贡献。结合其自我意识的收尾警告——轻易的异见本身就是一种偏差——它避免了浪漫化不从众的陷阱。弱点是真实的（二元框架、认识论标准不够具体、进化推测），但它们不能削弱核心区分——那个区分自有其行为证据支撑。
Original Text原文
Asch’s conformity experiment showed that the presence of a single dissenter tremendously reduced the incidence of “conforming” wrong answers. Individualism is easy, experiment shows, when you have company in your defiance. Every other subject in the room, except one, says that black is white. You become the second person to say that black is black. And it feels glorious: the two of you, lonely and defiant rebels, against the world!^1^
But you can only join the rebellion after someone, somewhere, becomes the first to rebel. Someone has to say that black is black after hearing everyone else, one after the other, say that black is white. And that—experiment shows—is a lot harder.
Lonely dissent doesn’t feel like going to school dressed in black. It feels like going to school wearing a clown suit.
That’s the difference between joining the rebellion and leaving the pack.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s fakeness—you may have noticed this. Well, lonely dissent has got to be one of the most commonly, most ostentatiously faked characteristics around. Everyone wants to be an iconoclast.
I don’t mean to degrade the act of joining a rebellion. There are rebellions worth joining. It does take courage to brave the disapproval of your peer group, or perhaps even worse, their shrugs. Needless to say, going to a rock concert is not rebellion. But, for example, vegetarianism is. I’m not a vegetarian myself, but I respect people who are, because I expect it takes a noticeable amount of quiet courage to tell people that hamburgers won’t work for dinner.^2^
Still, if you tell people that you’re a vegetarian, they’ll think they understand your motives (even if they don’t). They may disagree. They may be offended if you manage to announce it proudly enough, or for that matter, they may be offended just because they’re easily offended. But they know how to relate to you.
When someone wears black to school, the teachers and the other children understand the role thereby being assumed in their society. It’s Outside the System—in a very standard way that everyone recognizes and understands. Not, y’know, actually outside the system. It’s a Challenge to Standard Thinking, of a standard sort, so that people indignantly say, “I can’t understand why you—” but don’t have to actually think any thoughts they had not thought before. As the saying goes, “Has any of the ‘subversive literature’ you’ve read caused you to modify any of your political views?”
What takes real courage is braving the outright incomprehension of the people around you, when you do something that isn’t Standard Rebellion #37, something for which they lack a ready-made script. They don’t hate you for a rebel. They just think you’re, like, weird, and turn away. This prospect generates a much deeper fear. It’s the difference between explaining vegetarianism and explaining cryonics. There are other cryonicists in the world, somewhere, but they aren’t there next to you. You have to explain it, alone, to people who just think it’s weird. Not forbidden, but outside bounds that people don’t even think about. You’re going to get your head frozen? You think that’s going to stop you from dying? What do you mean, brain information? Huh? What? Are you crazy?
I’m tempted to essay a post facto explanation in evolutionary psychology: You could get together with a small group of friends and walk away from your hunter-gatherer band, but having to go it alone in the forests was probably a death sentence—at least reproductively. We don’t reason this out explicitly, but that is not the nature of evolutionary psychology. Joining a rebellion that everyone knows about is scary, but nowhere near as scary as doing something really differently—something that in ancestral times might have concluded, not with the band splitting, but with you being driven out alone.
As the case of cryonics testifies, the fear of thinking really different is stronger than the fear of death. Hunter-gatherers had to be ready to face death on a routine basis—hunting large mammals, or just walking around in a world that contained predators. They needed that courage in order to live. Courage to defy the tribe’s standard ways of thinking, to entertain thoughts that seem truly weird—well, that probably didn’t serve its bearers as well. We don’t reason this out explicitly; that’s not how evolutionary psychology works. We human beings are just built in such fashion that many more of us go skydiving than sign up for cryonics.
And that’s not even the highest courage. There’s more than one cryonicist in the world. Only Robert Ettinger had to say it first.
To be a scientific revolutionary, you’ve got to be the first person to contradict what everyone else you know is thinking. This is not the only route to scientific greatness; it is rare even among the great. No one can become a scientific revolutionary by trying to imitate revolutionariness. You can only get there by pursuing the correct answer in all things, whether the correct answer is revolutionary or not. But if, in the due course of time—if, having absorbed all the power and wisdom of the knowledge that has already accumulated—if, after all that and a dose of sheer luck, you find your pursuit of mere correctness taking you into new territory . . . then you have an opportunity for your courage to fail.
This is the true courage of lonely dissent, which every damn rock band out there tries to fake.
Of course, not everything that takes courage is a good idea. It would take courage to walk off a cliff, but then you would just go splat.
The fear of lonely dissent is a hindrance to good ideas, but not every dissenting idea is good.^3^ Most of the difficulty in having a new true scientific thought is in the “true” part.
It really isn’t necessary to be different for the sake of being different. If you do things differently only when you see an overwhelmingly good reason, you will have more than enough trouble to last you the rest of your life.
There are a few genuine packs of iconoclasts around. The Church of the SubGenius, for example, seems to genuinely aim at confusing the mundanes, not merely offending them. And there are islands of genuine tolerance in the world, such as science fiction conventions. There are certain people who have no fear of departing the pack. Many fewer such people really exist, than imagine themselves rebels; but they do exist. And yet scientific revolutionaries are tremendously rarer. Ponder that.
Now me, you know, I really am an iconoclast. Everyone thinks they are, but with me it’s true, you see. I would totally have worn a clown suit to school. My serious conversations were with books, not with other children.
But if you think you would totally wear that clown suit, then don’t be too proud of that either! It just means that you need to make an effort in the opposite direction to avoid dissenting too easily. That’s what I have to do, to correct for my own nature. Other people do have reasons for thinking what they do, and ignoring that completely is as bad as being afraid to contradict them. You wouldn’t want to end up as a free thinker. It’s not a virtue, you see—just a bias either way.
^1^Followup interviews showed that subjects in the one-dissenter condition expressed strong feelings of camaraderie with the dissenter—though, of course, they didn’t think the presence of the dissenter had influenced their own nonconformity.
^2^Albeit that in the Bay Area, people ask as a matter of routine.
^3^See Robin Hanson, “Against Free Thinkers,” Overcoming Bias (blog), 2007, http://www.overcoming-bias.com/2007/06/against\_free\_th.html.
阿希的从众实验表明，哪怕只有一个异见者的存在，就能大幅降低「从众式错误回答」的发生率。个人主义很容易，实验告诉我们，当你在反抗中不孤单的时候。房间里的其他所有人，除了一个人，都说黑是白。你成了第二个说黑是黑的人。这感觉棒极了：你们两个，孤独而不服的反叛者，对抗整个世界！^1^
但你只能在某处有人第一个反叛之后，加入这场反叛。必须有人在听完所有其他人、一个接一个地说黑是白之后，说出黑是黑。而那——实验表明——要难得多。
孤独的异见感觉不像穿一身黑去上学。它感觉像穿着小丑服去上学。
这就是加入反叛与离开群体之间的区别。
如果说有一件事是我无法忍受的，那就是虚伪——你也许已经注意到了。而孤独的异见，肯定是周围被伪装得最频繁、最招摇的特质之一。人人都想成为离经叛道者。
我无意贬低加入一场反叛的行为。有些反叛值得加入。鼓起勇气去承受同侪群体的反对，或者也许更糟糕的是他们的漠视，确实需要勇气。不用说，去参加一场摇滚音乐会不是反叛。但举个例子，素食主义是。我自己不是素食主义者，但我尊重那些是的人，因为我预计告诉别人汉堡包不适合晚餐，需要相当程度的、安静的勇气。^2^
不过，如果你告诉别人你是素食主义者，他们会觉得他们理解你的动机（即便他们并不真的理解）。他们也许不赞同。如果你宣布得足够骄傲，他们也许会生气；或者说，他们也许只是因为容易生气而生气。但他们知道如何与你相处。
当有人穿一身黑去上学，老师和其他孩子理解他在自己的社会中所扮演的角色。这是「体制外」——以一种非常标准的、人人都能认识和理解的方式。并不是，你知道，真的在体制外。这是对「标准思维」的一种挑战，是那种标准化的挑战，以至于人们义愤填膺地说「我不明白你为什么——」，但并不需要真正思考任何他们以前没有思考过的想法。正如有句话说的：「你读过的那些'颠覆性文学'，有没有让你修改过任何政治观点？」
真正需要勇气的，是鼓起勇气去面对周围人的彻底的不理解——当你做的事不是「标准反叛第37号」，某件他们没有现成剧本来应对的事。他们不是把你当作反叛者而仇恨你。他们只是觉得你，嗯，很奇怪，然后转身走开。这种前景产生一种深刻得多的恐惧。这就是解释素食主义与解释冷冻保存之间的差别。世界上别处确实有其他的冷冻保存倡导者，但他们不在你身边。你必须独自向那些只是觉得它奇怪的人解释。不是被禁止，而是超出人们甚至不会去思考的边界之外。你打算把脑袋冷冻起来？你觉得这能阻止你死亡？什么叫脑信息？嗯？什么？你疯了吗？
我忍不住要尝试一种进化心理学的事后解释：你也许能和一小群朋友一起，走出你所在的狩猎采集群落，但独自在森林里生活，很可能是一道死刑判决——至少从繁殖意义上说。我们不会显式地推理这一点，但那并非进化心理学的运作方式。加入一场人人都知道的反叛是可怕的，但远没有真正以不同方式行事那么可怕——某些在远祖时代可能导致的结局，不是群落分裂，而是你被独自驱逐出去。
正如冷冻保存这个案例所证明的，对真正想法不同的恐惧，比对死亡的恐惧更强。狩猎采集者必须随时准备好面对死亡——猎杀大型哺乳动物，或者仅仅是行走在一个有捕食者的世界里。他们需要那种勇气才能活下去。挑战群落的标准思维方式、考虑那些看起来真正奇怪的想法的勇气——嗯，那对拥有它的人来说，很可能没那么有用。我们不会显式地推理这一切；进化心理学不是那样运作的。我们人类就是以这样的方式被建造出来的，以至于去跳伞的人，远远多于报名冷冻保存的人。
而那甚至还不是最高级别的勇气。世界上不止一个冷冻保存倡导者。只有罗伯特·艾廷格才不得不第一个说出口。
要成为一个科学革命者，你必须是第一个与你认识的所有人正在思考的东西相矛盾的人。这不是通往科学伟大的唯一道路；即便在伟人之中，这也很罕见。没有人能通过试图模仿革命性而成为科学革命者。你只能通过在一切事情上追求正确答案而抵达那里，无论正确答案是否具有革命性。但如果，在时间的推移中——如果，在吸收了已经积累的知识的所有力量与智慧之后——如果，在这一切以及一份纯粹的运气之后，你发现对单纯的正确性的追求把你带入了新的领域……那时你就获得了一个让你的勇气失败的机会。
这才是孤独异见真正的勇气，而每一个该死的摇滚乐队都试图伪装这一点。
当然，并非每一件需要勇气的事都是好主意。走下悬崖需要勇气，但那样你只会摔死。
对孤独异见的恐惧妨碍了好的想法，但并非每一个异见的想法都是好的。^3^ 拥有一个新的真实的科学想法，大多数困难在于「真实」那部分。
为了与众不同而与众不同，真的没有必要。如果你只在看到一个压倒性的好理由时才做不同的事，你就已经有足够的麻烦陪你度过余生了。
周围确实存在一些真正的离经叛道者群体。例如，天才亚文化（Church of the SubGenius）似乎真的以迷惑普通人为目标，而不仅仅是冒犯他们。而世界上确实存在真正宽容的孤岛，比如科幻小说大会。确实存在某些完全不害怕离开群体的人。真正存在的这类人，远比那些自以为是反叛者的人少得多；但他们确实存在。然而科学革命者罕见得多。思考一下这件事。
现在，我，你知道，我真的是一个离经叛道者。人人都这么认为自己是，但对我来说这是真的，你看。我完全会穿着小丑服去上学。我的认真对话对象是书，不是其他孩子。
但如果你觉得你完全会穿那件小丑服，那也别为此太骄傲！这只意味着你需要在相反方向上付出努力，以避免过于轻易地异见。那正是我为了修正自身天性而必须做的事。其他人确实有他们思考方式背后的理由，完全无视这一点，和害怕反驳他们一样糟糕。你可不想最终成为一个「自由思想者」。这不是一种美德，你看——只是偏差，只是方向不同罢了。
^1^后续访谈显示，处于一个异见者条件中的被试，对那个异见者表达了强烈的同志情感——尽管，当然，他们认为异见者的存在并未影响他们自己的不从众行为。
^2^尽管在湾区，人们会把这当作例行公事般的问题来问。
^3^参见 Robin Hanson，《反对自由思想者》，克服偏见（博客），2007，http://www.overcoming-bias.com/2007/06/against\_free\_th.html。