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The Four Quadrants of Conformism
221–230 of 882 posts
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#222Earlier 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 feel the same way, but I think this era is much more directly similar to the "red guards" period during the Chinese cultural revolution than Soviet examples. Some of the parallels are just so direct -- students denouncing their professors, forcing them them to recant, the ideologies of the students growing more and more rigid and narrow through the conformity of the mob, until they often ended up even denouncing th…
Agreed. Recently read Born Red by Yuan Gao. Harrowing, both in what happened and how plausible it sounds today
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#223This does somewhat come off as cod philosophy. There have been ample studies in group psychology and minority influence dating back to the mid 20th century, and the fact is that independent thinkers have massive influence wherever they go. See here for a reasonable primer, key thinkers are Asch and Moscovici:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/minority-influence.html
So, the whole "rules to restrain the conformist sheeple" thing doesn't really apply. The author has created a category, put himself in it, then heaped praise on it. Neither edifying nor tasteful. Sorry.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#224I 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 p…
Sounds like you are conventionally-minded. ;-)
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#225As a (mildly) aggressive non-conformist, I prefer the motto "non serviam"
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
It does not make sense to me that we should say the actions of a government are less important to criticise or examine because we can vote on that government.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But innovation isn't good per se. Innovation isn't anything in moral terms. All technological change is a trade-off. For every advantage a new technology offers, there is always a corresponding disadvantage. The advantages and disadvantages of new technologies are never distributed evenly among the population. This means that every new technology benefits some and harms others.
This is silly. The world isn't balanced like that. Many improvements have no disadvantage. More efficient photovoltaic cells, not needing hfcfs in pressurized spray cans, discovering that you can add a bit of carbon to iron, ...
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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
To clarify how I see it - I don’t see it as a defense of existing social structures, I see it as a defense of freedom. Some existing social structures promote it, and so would others that don’t exist yet (some ideas: social network that proliferates good debates, tool that shows a politician’s vested interests, laws on transparency and symmetry, a new kind of univ focused on experience in the real world, etc) To answ…
> I don’t see it as a defense of existing social structures, I see it as a defense of freedom. Right, in the same sentence in which you identified "freedom", not as an abstract ideal that stands alone, but as one of "the fundamental ideas that America is built on". That tells me you're making a political point (or an identity one, I guess), not a principled one. As far as your definition, I'd just go with this: - Do…
You are mixing thought and values, in both of your questions.
Independent minded people can find themselves agreeing with people in power; the independence of mind is about the “why” not the “what.” If you independently, critically evaluate an issue and settle on the common belief that doesn’t make you conformist.
Likewise, if you settle on the opposite side and don’t act on it, it takes nothing away from your independence of thought, rather it’s a question of values. The answer to “is this worth my time?“ is yes or no independently of whether you agree of disagree with the zeitgeist.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
Peaceful protestors being brutalised by police has been documented in almost countless cases by now. I find it hard to believe that you're asking this is good faith, but if you you are then you can: * Watch any one of the hundreds of videos documenting what I'm referring to. * Read pretty much any major news source in the US documenting these cases. I'm sorry that I don't have a specific source to point you to, but i…
> Peaceful protestors being brutalised by police has been documented in almost countless cases by now
Yes, I've seen plenty of evidence for that[1]. On the other hand you said "protestors are being arrested by secret police in the US". That's quite a different claim and I haven't seen any evidence for that. I've heard a few reports and associated videos whose reliability I haven't been able to verify.
[1] For the avoidance of doubt my belief is that that kind of behaviour does not belong in a civilised society.