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The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#61

Post by zucker42 »

It's certainly an interesting framework for thinking about things, and some of the thoughts seem aligned with my ideas on this issues. The problem is that I think everybody, including and especially people who view themselves as independently-minded, is susceptible to conformism and a lack of ideological independence. It seems to me like a basic fact of our biology, or at least very ingrained in our culture, that we develop ideas based on identification and solidarity with groups we belong to. It's true of politicians, VC firm leaders, tech workers, economists, and even the most earnest scientists. The idea that there is a class of people who are "independently-minded" and therefore somehow more intellectually useful is flawed because people tend to have interesting, unique ideas in some areas and ideas which amount to little more than parroting a group belief in others.

Along these lines, the article argues that conformism is independent of rules (and it implies also independent of context), but I don't think it gives sufficient evidence for this point. It also doesn't agree with my experience; I was a bit of "goody-two-shoes" in K-12 (i.e. a passive conformist), but now my political outlook is niche, I try to think scientifically about the world, and I'd self-judge to be passive independently-minded person.

> Though the people who run Silicon Valley are almost all independent-minded

This reads as extremely overconfident, and in my judgement it is probably false. I think tech as an industry faces the same issues with group-think that any large-enough community is bound to face, and I don't think Silicon Valley is a pinnacle of enlightened, humanist society. The whole article to some extent reads like "if more people were more like Paul Graham, the world would be better". Obviously, that's the not the argument of the article (and to be fair, it's probably true the world would be better with more Paul Grahams), but its interesting I got an impression of that sentiment in an article about the dangers of conformism. And it's also interesting that it's not the first time I've read a very similar argument in recent weeks.

In case I seem overly harsh, I want to clarify it was a thought-provoking article I enjoyed reading.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#62

Post by notsureaboutpg »

stopachka wrote: post #40
notsureaboutpg wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No matter what, the fundamental ideas that America is built on is focused so heavily on freedom Freedom as long as you aren't threateningly critical of America. The journalist of the Syrian War who took an anti-American stance and was targetted by American drone strikes would prove otherwise: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...

The fact that an article exists, and it’s possible for him to sue, is a right and luxury afforded to us by this American belief in freedom.

His suit was dismissed by the government because having to defend themselves against the accusation would disclose state secrets. The right to sue only matters if you can meaningfully exercise it...

And your standards are ridiculous. If anyone anywhere was able to show you a story of the US trying to kill someone for committing ideological heresy then the very fact they could tell you the story is proof that Amrrica believes in ideological freedom? You see the contradiction surely...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#63

Post by bob33212 »

I agree that within some groups like humanities departments, twitter and liberal companies the social justice movement is out of control. Just promoting a white male employee, or calling the police in a black person you see commiting a crime would make you fear for your job in some of those circles.

On the other side there was a member of Congress who called a female member of Congress a "fucking bitch" and also the president has said plenty of sexist and racist things recently without either person losing their job.

The fact that both of these can exist in the same country is the troubling thing to me. They not even remotely trying to understand each other.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#64

Post by anonmidniteshpr »

r4vik wrote: post #2

50% of the words in this article could have been replaced with an image +-----------------------------------+------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | tattletales | naughty ones | | | | aggressive | | | | | | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | | | | | | | | | passive | | dreamy ones | | sheep | | | | | | | | +-----------------------------------+---------------------…

So if I called my very bi gf to be at my work's stairwell for a nooner just before the lunch rush the day after we were in a tiny dark park in (a certain sleepy South Bay SF town)* for 4 hours going at it... I guess take makes me a take-no-chances, passive sheeple welcoming of law-and-order-types. Bahhahah }xD

* Local cops actually made numerous good suggestions where couples could go because she broached it before I could. Lmaoooo. Hilarity ensued and then rotfl. For cops, they seemed really cool which was shocking outside of Little Italy/Northbeach SF.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#65

Post by Miner49er »

chippy wrote: post #54
Miner49er wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social justice and true equality aren't conformist ideas though. We live at a time when wealth inequality is around the highest since our country has kept track and you think equality is a mainstream conformist idea?

Following on from the essay, the ideas are adopted by aggressively conventional minded even if they are "non conformist". Other aggressively conventional minded people believe in the the rules of ever explosive growth, exploitation and free market capitalism. The ideas do conflict with each other obviously. The essay gives the example of abolitionism that some aggressively conventional minds back in history would be…

This is a good point. It shows the problem with the whole article. I think many people don't view themselves as "conformist" no matter who they are. PG certainly doesn't view himself as conformist. Everyone likes to think they that are independent thinkers, but most people, by definition, aren't. If a person thinks they're an independent thinker, then they'll simply think that anyone who thinks like them are also independent thinkers. In reality, they're just conforming, but maybe in a way that's different than other conformists.

PG seems to be calling out "cancel culture" with this essay, but I think the people on both sides of that argument are conforming. The independent thinkers are busy with things that actually matter and aren't paying attention.

I can't think of many people that I would label truly independent thinkers. The first that comes to my mind is maybe Richard Stallman, but that's about it.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#66

Post by chippy »

TigeriusKirk wrote: post #56

Does a voting and flagging system on a discussion board reward the aggressively conventional or the aggressively independent to a greater extent? Which group does such a system punish to a greater extent?

In HN people often flag submissions to keep the identity and content more coherent and to reduce flame. (e.g. flagging advertisements, political and culture war submissions)

Perhaps it's the passive ones that flag submissions, but downvoting comments occurs by more aggressive conventional ones? I'd love to see statistics.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#67

Post by anonmidniteshpr »

r4vik wrote: post #27
tome wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I wish I could fork and vim it on some sort of HN interface, but the home internet is down and I'm on my tiny, ancient iPhone 6s just trying to hit the right letters and not make misspelling like I'm drunk texting a translated novel from somewhere in Belarus.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#68

Post by stopachka »

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #62
stopachka wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that an article exists, and it’s possible for him to sue, is a right and luxury afforded to us by this American belief in freedom.

His suit was dismissed by the government because having to defend themselves against the accusation would disclose state secrets. The right to sue only matters if you can meaningfully exercise it... And your standards are ridiculous. If anyone anywhere was able to show you a story of the US trying to kill someone for committing ideological heresy then the very fact they could tell you the story is proof that Amrrica…

I don’t quite see it, because at least in the part of the world I was raised, I can tell you that someone talking about this on the news would have sounded ridiculous.

I do agree that America has never been a perfect bastion of freedom, and there are large struggles today. It definitely saddens me to see that.

Yet, this is the whole point of the idea that our ties to freedom are fundamental — that some group in the U.S _will_ disagree with authorities, that even if a suit is dropped, they may continue the fight. It’s not ideal that we have to fight, but the fact that we can is a freedom that is very rare.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#69

Post by gregwebs »

Since this is claimed to come down to personality types, it would make sense to look at research on personality types. There is a model of personality types that seems relate-able where people are characterized as upholder, rebel, questioner, or obliger [1]. The aggressive ones line up at least:

upholder = tattletales, rebel = naughty ones

I don't think that equating the passive category to personality types in this model works, but it would be:

questioner = dreamy ones, obliger = sheep

The reason being that obliger is characterized more by relationships with others (aggressive/passive) than by being conventional or independent minded.

[1] https://psychcentral.com/blog/4-personality-types-the-uphold...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#70

Post by luckylion »

PaulHoule wrote: post #48
luckylion wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so he is using coded speech Please give us the decoder, because "it's code for whatever I feel like it is" is really not helpful.

Those Girard books that Peter Thiel wants you to buy because (1) Thiel got a commission and (2) Thiel doesn't know anything academic that didn't happen at Stanford. Girard seemed to think that the great cultural problem of the world was "The Court of Versailles" where nobles who have no real problems just compete to be the same as each other. It's a compelling problem if you're a vendor who makes fancy stuff for the…

Sorry, I meant the decoder of what you feel he's really trying to say through some obfuscated means. I suppose you've attributed some ideas to him, otherwise why the talk about the "smackdown from LGBT activists", but you just alluded to it instead of writing "he says this, this, and that, but he's using the following code: ..."

That's hardly useful, because it's more mysticism, and there's no testing your opinion, and so it also can't be rejected .

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