If you want to learn about the various types of people and how they relate to the world around them, study the French Revolution (in depth, not just a snippet). You will find every kind of person (in much more complex combinations than presented here), and how they participate/change/destroy/terrorize/etc. People today are no different we just have more technology.
The Four Quadrants of Conformism
21–30 of 882 posts
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#22Good grief man, if you can only detect new ideas when they erupt from the mouths of startup CEOs, and you can't credit things like social justice and equality as anything but conformist (despite having been denied millions if not billions of people), then you're not 'independent', you're just incredibly narrow minded.
What's ironic about it is that Y Combinator has been accused of becoming yet another badge of being the right kind of person.
There are so many people out there who want to say they were part of "Y Co" but aren't really interested in making or doing anything. Bossing people around and having status has some appeal to them, but taking some actual stand is just too dangerous. Some rich dude like like Paul Graham might reject them, they wouldn't want people to think they were S1W's or anything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHyCIDu6dSY
I think Mr. Graham needs some diversity in his life. Maybe he should spend a night in a hotel in Marin County or Gilroy would open up his vistas.
(Oh, but you know Y Co wouldn't be effective at all if it was moved across the street from where it is -- if Altman and Graham had any self conciousness or thought where their arguments lead they'd realize they are arguing for 100% local taxation on themselves because the only value behind Y Co is the holy land which is the only place where rich people will let you have an exit... Except for China)
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#23As always in discussions of "types of people" it's more nuanced than this. Someone can be both aggressively conformist over some issues (and towards some groups) and aggressively independent over others. In fact if you picture a stereotypical conspiracy-minded alt-right individual then the exhibit both behaviours at the same time about the same group. (individualist) "I won't do x because the government tells me I sh…
This is true. The most important discovery in human psychology is that our behaviour is extremely context dependent. This is why it's so hard to draw any conclusions or make experiments that discover something universal. People have different roles and behaviours in different context, they can change their behaviour radically in the same context when they get different responses.
Psychology researchers know this, but in the folk psychology there is this assumption that you can observe people in context and that's how they are.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#24Good grief man, if you can only detect new ideas when they erupt from the mouths of startup CEOs, and you can't credit things like social justice and equality as anything but conformist (despite having been denied millions if not billions of people), then you're not 'independent', you're just incredibly narrow minded.
The ideas of social justice and equality spring from the independent quadrant. These ideas have become the rules that conventional quadrant follow and expose.
This doesn't seem to contradict itself.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#25As always in discussions of "types of people" it's more nuanced than this. Someone can be both aggressively conformist over some issues (and towards some groups) and aggressively independent over others. In fact if you picture a stereotypical conspiracy-minded alt-right individual then the exhibit both behaviours at the same time about the same group. (individualist) "I won't do x because the government tells me I sh…
I don't see a contradiction in your example. I think such individuals are consistently being aggressively conformist with their group , but for the hyper-political, their group isn't the nation, but the party. That seems to fit with PG's claim that "The call of the aggressively conventional-minded is 'Crush !'". Naturally that would extend to disobeying the rules of the outgroup, perhaps solely because the outgroup p…
OK - I didn't spend that much time constructing my caricature but I still feel my point is valid if you want to modify them somewhat.
I myself remember feeling the strong pull of both "types" and I'd struggle to define myself clearly as either. (although I suspect I'm more frequently conformist than my overly flattering self-image depicts)
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#26Good grief man, if you can only detect new ideas when they erupt from the mouths of startup CEOs, and you can't credit things like social justice and equality as anything but conformist (despite having been denied millions if not billions of people), then you're not 'independent', you're just incredibly narrow minded.
Could you unpack this? The only social justice-related example in the piece was a positive one (antebellum abolitionism). It seems like you might be reading into the piece more than was intended.
Graham is in the bay area and he knows he'd get the smackdown from LGBT activists if he said what he meant, so he is using coded speech. The breathless tone that there is something wrong on college campuses these days (without being specific) is a dead giveaway.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#2750% of the words in this article could have been replaced with an image +-----------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | tattletales | naughty ones | | | | aggressive | | | | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | passive | | dreamy ones | | sheep | | | | | | | | +-----------------------------------+---------------------…
Yikes, would you mind editing that so that it has half as many (ASCII) columns, and about one fifth as many rows? As it is it is taking up my entire screen.
not the easiest thing to edit in this text area but I've reduced the height
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#28As always in discussions of "types of people" it's more nuanced than this. Someone can be both aggressively conformist over some issues (and towards some groups) and aggressively independent over others. In fact if you picture a stereotypical conspiracy-minded alt-right individual then the exhibit both behaviours at the same time about the same group. (individualist) "I won't do x because the government tells me I sh…
I don't see a contradiction in your example. I think such individuals are consistently being aggressively conformist with their group , but for the hyper-political, their group isn't the nation, but the party. That seems to fit with PG's claim that "The call of the aggressively conventional-minded is 'Crush !'". Naturally that would extend to disobeying the rules of the outgroup, perhaps solely because the outgroup p…
Isnt PG claiming that the "rules" are to value free expression and not turn people into heretics and that those who "break" this rule are bad and unworthy and never able to have new, original ideas and thus should never be listened to?
Sounds like he is trying to say "Crush !" to me...
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#29As for most attempts to classify people, it should be strongly stated that any single human would fits several quadrants depending on the subject, the phase in their life they are in, or even the mood of the day.
I read this two dimensional presentation only as device to discuss a theoretical point, and not something that could have any practicality.
In particular, I think a lot of people switch from the "sheep" quadrant and the "naughty ones" pretty freely. They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken, and ideally will get back to being "Sheep" once it doesn't make sense to be a "naughty one" anymore (i.e. rules have changed, or better, they changed the rule)
That's also a reason why I see places like startup hubs where people consciously behave in unconventional ways (= be jerks, most of the time) to feel like they're "naughty ones" shouldn't be lauded, and being indepdendent minded should be balanced with benefits to the surrounding people or society (if you break big rules, it should have a big payoff for everyone)
PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life. In other classifications it would be "lawful neutral" for instance.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#30Good grief man, if you can only detect new ideas when they erupt from the mouths of startup CEOs, and you can't credit things like social justice and equality as anything but conformist (despite having been denied millions if not billions of people), then you're not 'independent', you're just incredibly narrow minded.
Could you unpack this? The only social justice-related example in the piece was a positive one (antebellum abolitionism). It seems like you might be reading into the piece more than was intended.
The recent history of PG's twitter outpourings has been about the danger posed by political correctness and progressives more generally, in the face of criticism of things like AI bias.