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The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#191

Post by tome »

oisdk wrote: post #177
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…

I find it bizarre that comments like these seem to think the main battle ground for free speech is young people like myself "cancelling" people on twitter, when at the same time protestors are being arrested by secret police in the US. Like there is an authoritarian government right there for you to criticise, but you choose only to talk endlessly about tweets like "can white people make rice, or is it cultural appro…

> protestors are being arrested by secret police in the US

I genuinely don't have reliable information to determine whether they are peaceful protestors or violent rioters, nor whether the police are secret or not. Where would I go to find out?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#192

Post by DavidVoid »

motorcycleman9 wrote: post #119
DavidVoid wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are intolerant of Peterson because of Peterson's intolerance though.

Many people intentionally mischaracterize Peterson as intolerant. His position is generally extremely open-minded and comes from the position of a psychologist that has seen the failure modes of many different clients' lifestyles. When he tells moral tales that tilt toward a conservative lifestyle, they are told in the sense that straying from a conservative path is morally fine, but subjects you to personal risk of…

One of the main reasons for his rise to fame was the opposition to bill C-16. A bill he claimed to oppose because of its free-speech implications, when all the bill actually did was extend existing legal protections of identifiable groups to also include gender identity and gender expression. Those exact same protections already existed on the basis of race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, and mental or physical disability. If Peterson's gripe is with compelled speech then how come he didn't strongly criticize the existing legislation for other identifiable groups, but instead just singled out the new protections for transgender individuals?

> straying from a conservative path is morally fine, but subjects you to personal risk of worse outcomes.

Which is a baseless and very questionable claim to make.

> Many people intentionally mischaracterize Peterson as intolerant.

Peterson is a Christian conservative with some fairly patriarchal ideas [1,2], so I think characterizing him as intolerant is pretty fair.

[1] "[Western feminists avoid criticizing Islam because of] their unconscious wish for brutal male domination." https://twitter.com/aliamjadrizvi/status/1001164042856271874

[2] It is "hypocritical" for a woman to wear makeup in the workplace if she doesn't want to be sexually harassed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blTglME9rvQ&t=7m12s

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#193

Post by krapp »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #172
wdwecewc wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who claims to be educated on history, it is important then to remind yourself of why this actually occurs. You can't make essays dismissing some angry mob as if they are a homogenous hivemind. They won't listen to you because they literally can't listen to you, they act independently and uncoordinated. You have to tackle issues which cause them to be aggressive towards racists to begin with. Police brutali…

Is this how this is supposed to work, then? A lot of people get angry about something and demonstrate/riot, and in response the laws get changed to pacify them. There's a term for that: "mob rule". It's not a good thing. I'm not for one second saying that Police brutality isn't a problem. I don't live in the USA so I don't know. I am saying that if your system doesn't provide a method for fixing this problem without…

That's how things tend to work when people are so alienated or disenfranchised from the system that change within the system becomes impossible, yes.

And while people like to dismiss any group whose concerns they disagree with as being merely an "angry mob," more often than not that "mob's" concerns are legitimate, and their anger is justifiable. Laws don't get passed to "pacify" them, they get passed because public pressure and awareness turns public opinion in their favor, making it politically infeasible for those in power to continue the status quo.

That's not the way it's supposed to work, but that's the inevitable result of a democratic process and society not working as it ought to begin with.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#194

Post by mantap »

cjfd wrote: post #146

Regarding the use of the 'aggressively conventional minded'. When I was younger I would think that these kind of people were mostly just detrimental to society but I have come to see that they sometimes have a use. It is this kind of people who were the first to see that immigration and multiculturalism have their limits. For instance, salafism cannot just be seen as just another opinion that people can have. Of cour…

Salafism itself is aggressive conventional-mindednessness. I'm sure they would say that it is the west that is sliding into lawlessness. The laws are very different but the thinking is the same.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#195

Post by minikites »

threatofrain wrote: post #189
Dumblydorr wrote: post #113

This is one of PG's weaker essays. He attempts to glide between psychology, history, politics, and philosophy without proper evidence or background in those areas. His construct is somewhat interesting on the surface but is only supported by his own feelings and his own anecdata, he doesn't point to anything relevant or similar written by actual experts.

Yeah but unless there's someone who is a domain expert, deeply affiliated with experts from other domains, willing to drop into HN to give free advice... gurus are what you get. As popular as HN is, there are surprisingly few people willing to do this.

Why would they even try on HN, a site that famously looks down on any subject that isn't STEM or closely adjacent?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#196

Post by wrren »

oisdk wrote: post #177
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…

I find it bizarre that comments like these seem to think the main battle ground for free speech is young people like myself "cancelling" people on twitter, when at the same time protestors are being arrested by secret police in the US. Like there is an authoritarian government right there for you to criticise, but you choose only to talk endlessly about tweets like "can white people make rice, or is it cultural appro…

Because there's a mechanism for changing that government: the upcoming presidential election. Whereas changing a cultural movement like the one we're watching unfold is a lot more difficult.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#197

Post by chippy »

Miner49er wrote: post #65
chippy wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ind…

Agreed. I think the "opposing" aggressively conventional people would be believing in the rule of law, authority of the police and social and cultural conservatism. These, 10 years ago, would be seen as mainstream ideas.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#198

Post by seneca »

tome wrote: post #186
seneca wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All technological change is a trade-off. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. This, to me, reads as one of those statements that sounds wise and correct but doesn't really stand up to scrutiny. Going from digging with your hands to using a shovel doesn't have a negative trade off. Going from carrying things on your back to using a wheeled cart doesn't have a cor…

> Going from carrying things on your back to using a wheeled cart doesn't have a corresponding disadvantage. Doesn't it? What if those "things" are weapons that you are carrying to battle?

> Doesn't it? What if those "things" are weapons that you are carrying to battle?

I'm not sure what your point is.

Are you suggesting that some things are better kept close at hand and not on a cart? The invention of the cart does not remove the ability to carry things.

Do you mean to make an appeal to the evils of war? If so, the morality of a use case doesn't have much to do with the efficacy of a technology, though I think you have a point of discussion there. War is hardly always evil, but maybe you could argue that adding efficiency to the ability to wage unjust war is a disadvantage. But, again, you have to get very abstract to make that argument.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#199

Post by jessaustin »

jschwartzi wrote: post #124
jessaustin wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people have been so misled by education and media consumption that they have no idea what is going on. It is a commonplace that conformists will profess to beliefs that they regularly undermine. E.g., the people who "support the protests" but still whinge about how they're too "confrontational" and "violent".

Or they recognize that people have a right to protest but don’t appreciate the small minority who use it as an opportunity to incite violence.

They're protesting the policing of minorities, and you stand at the ready to police their protesting... by asserting their minority status! In lots of protests this isn't a "small minority". Please think more carefully. The author of TFA would not appreciate your aggressive conformity.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#200

Post by tome »

jmeister wrote: post #116
wdwecewc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It’s too far in the game to still make this claim. Go through this list and tell us there is no “real” speech suppression: https://twitter.com/SoOppressed/status/1282404647160942598?s...

In fact it's mostly worse than that, because it's barely even "speech", it's people getting picked on for making trivial "mistakes".
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