The Four Quadrants of Conformism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#101

Post by threatofrain » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

lm28469 wrote: post #76

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-...

You don't even have to look that far, there are secret police officers using unmarked rental cars to arrest protesters without telling them who they are and why they are being arrested. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/17/portland-pro... https://twitter.com/sparrowmedia/status/1283436911307218948

How many bad apples makes a police black site?

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/feb/24/chicago-poli...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#102

Post by agarv » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:56 PM UTC

Not meant to be snarky, but PG seems to have rediscovered the big five personality traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits specifically agreeableness and openness. For people that want to learn more, Jordan Peterson has a great video lecture series about it https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL22J3VaeABQApSdW8X71I...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#103

Post by wdwecewc » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:56 PM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #91

stopachka wrote: post #31

Loved this essay. The phrase “aggressively conventional minded” is genius, and may contribute a lot towards the solution. As someone coming from an ex-soviet state, I’ve felt personal alarm bells ring more and more, as I experience the kind of intolerance and double speak America is heading into. Both the left and the right my opinion are missing the key points on freedom (the left suppressing and labeling, the right…

Also from an ex soviet state. Also feel alarm bells going off. I'm legitimately scared. I've seen this before, I know where it goes. It's really hard to convey my feeling of alarm to people here though. Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, I guess. Doesn't help that the conformists have been allowed to frame the narrative as 'either you agree with us, or you're literally Hitler/Stalin' depending on…

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#104

Post by Dumblydorr » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:57 PM UTC

thom wrote: post #10

Good 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.

I think PG's a product of his world. He isn't an expert in personality or psychology, so he looks to other tech leaders as thought leaders and independent saviors, and he is regurgitating commonly held views about Left and Right to fit his construct. He does so with extremely scant evidence, because his task is to make a snappy essay, not a coherent theory with strong evidence.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#105

Post by jmeister » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #18

Ah, conventional minded people are those who insist that those who break the rules are bad, worthless in society, and should be punished. Then Mr. Graham goes on to say that the rules of civilized, successful, wealthy societies are that everyone should be free to debate even the worst of ideas, and the people who prevent this or disagree with this are bad, never become entrepreneurs (a laughable thought), are not wor…

The only rebuttal to PG in your comment is ARAMCO, which was a state-run org till recently, and is nothing like the companies PG is talking about.

Try again.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#106

Post by motorcycleman9 » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

oisdk wrote: post #53

"Here's a taxonomy of people that I just made up. There are four types of people, classified by superficial characteristics. Actually, this classification is an extremely strong indicator for behaviour, certainly stronger than other indicators. How do I know this? I am very smart and I say so. Based on this fact, I notice that the social-justicy types of today bear some superficial and extremely tenuous resemblance t…

I think the exercise of considering which historical atrocities you would passively comply with is a good exercise for understanding the banality of evil. PG did little to argue his moral superiority from this perspective, rather highlighted how different people conform to the norm, regardless of the virtue (or lack thereof) of the norm itself. The many anti-slavery individuals of the past still largely did nothing for hundreds of years until popular opinion and material conditions changed tides.

You point out that he did have an axe to grind regarding cancel culture, and highlight that it's not particularly heroic. But in doing so it makes it even more apparent that the anti-cancel-culture crowd is passive and ineffective, making his point clearer.

He could have made the same point regarding conformity by citing the Stanford prison experiment if he wanted to. I'd be willing to bet a dollar that there are personality psychology studies that even correlate 5-factor personality traits to moral conformity. Unfortunately popular culture is bit too much of the opinion that there are no underlying personality traits that predict future behavior nowadays.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#107

Post by oisdk » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

garbagetime wrote: post #90

oisdk wrote: post #53

"Here's a taxonomy of people that I just made up. There are four types of people, classified by superficial characteristics. Actually, this classification is an extremely strong indicator for behaviour, certainly stronger than other indicators. How do I know this? I am very smart and I say so. Based on this fact, I notice that the social-justicy types of today bear some superficial and extremely tenuous resemblance t…

> It would be hard to pick a more "conventionally-minded" opinion than "I think free speech is good" It's important to make the distinction between people who feel like they're in favour of freedom of speech, and people who are actually in favour of freedom of speech. It often seems to me that Americans belong to the former group but not the latter. I'll link a funny poll (from a long time ago, but I'd love to see a…

> It's important to make the distinction between people who feel like they're in favour of freedom of speech, and people who are actually in favour of freedom of speech.

Exactly. I think it's clear which group Graham falls into.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#108

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 12:59 PM UTC

wdwecewc wrote: post #103

missosoup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also from an ex soviet state. Also feel alarm bells going off. I'm legitimately scared. I've seen this before, I know where it goes. It's really hard to convey my feeling of alarm to people here though. Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, I guess. Doesn't help that the conformists have been allowed to frame the narrative as 'either you agree with us, or you're literally Hitler/Stalin' depending on…

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#109

Post by bambax » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

I have come to intensely dislike most of PG's essays, for many reasons, but the two main ones are that

1/ he plays fast and loose with the facts, reduces the whole history of (the various peoples of) humanity to a single arrow, and confuses demonstration with affirmation

and, more importantly

2/ he has an unhealthy obsession with "classifying" people, by which he actually means ranking them, from top to bottom. The people on top are the ones that make the world move in the right direction, and the ones at the bottom are dragging us all down. (Of course, he always ends up in the best category himself.)

But innovation isn't good per se. If you invent novel ways of torturing people (or animals, cf. the whole meat industry), that's not progress.

If you come up with clever ways of escaping the law for your own benefit while everyone else suffers (the whole "gig economy"), that's not a net gain for society, and society is legitimate in fighting you.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#110

Post by missosoup » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 1:00 PM UTC

wdwecewc wrote: post #103

missosoup wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also from an ex soviet state. Also feel alarm bells going off. I'm legitimately scared. I've seen this before, I know where it goes. It's really hard to convey my feeling of alarm to people here though. Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it, I guess. Doesn't help that the conformists have been allowed to frame the narrative as 'either you agree with us, or you're literally Hitler/Stalin' depending on…

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You sound like someone who has never experienced the second phase of where this culture inevitably leads to. I pray that it remains that way.

This is not a left/right issue. This is a mental homogeneity to the point of militant aggression towards dissenting views issue. And it always leads to totalitarianism.