So one quadrant upvotes the posts they like, and downvotes the ones they don't like, another quadrant simply upvotes the posts they like, another tries to find a middle ground and mend rifts, another has no account, lurks and laughs inside.
The Four Quadrants of Conformism
271–280 of 882 posts
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#272Earlier 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, ...
You could argue that automation is one of those improvements with no disadvantage. But it can also result in people losing their jobs and those people might be opposed to it.
I would argue that the same is true with the gig economy. It benefits the people participating in it greatly but it also cost some people their jobs (e.g. taxi drivers).
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#273"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…
> Last I checked, opposition to "cancel culture" and censorship is about as mainstream a position as there is Not at all. I am 40. My father and one of my brothers share that position with me, but every single one of my friends and acquaintances from universities and workplaces, in the USA and in the European country in which I grew up, if they make their position clear on social media, it is in line with the progres…
> it is in line with the progressive left and thus implicitly at least supportive of "cancel culture" and censorship.
It's very easy to say everyone is in favour of cancel culture if you say that any support of the "progressive left" amounts to support for cancel culture.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#274I 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…
> he has an unhealthy obsession with "classifying" people, by which he actually means ranking them, from top to bottom
I remember coming to an event at the YC headquarters a few years ago and that's exactly the way PG acted in person as well. He was surrounded by people wanting to talk to him the whole time, whenever someone would say hi and introduce themselves he would immediately ask for their HN username, then either strike a conversation or just say something along the lines of "doesn't ring a bell" and pass on to the next person.
Many of the people that have gone through YC feel like the program has inherited that same quality. There are a few darlings in each batch that the partners really focus on and put their biggest efforts towards, while the rest feel almost inadequate for not being as awesome as the top ones.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree. I would like for someone to enumerate all the people who have been “cancelled” and then compare it to those that have been violently attacked.
Your "just count the cancelled" does not work. I have lived in the East Europe pre-Perestroyka and back then, it was "just count political prisoners; see how few there are!". And it was true -- there were not that many by 1980s. But there were few not because thought police was not real, but because any appearance of acting against it would be quickly dealt with. So very few people would dare. That's the path we are…
> "just count political prisoners; see how few there are!"
You see how it comes across as a little ridiculous when you equate "being cancelled on twitter" to "being a literal political prisoner"? Especially when there are actual political prisoners, in prison, in the US right now?
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#276Earlier 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…
since when are the feds a secret police?
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of the people "being cancelled" on twitter are only freaking out because for the first time in forever, they get the direct opinion of people reading their texts unfiltered, and they find out that they are prey to criticism. For example, Kelly Loeffler, claims to have been "cancelled" while being a sitting US senator. Cancel culture by popular action is not new (see letter-writing to TV stations, Frank Zappa ha…
People expressing their opinions about one's ideas is not cancel culture: it's when critics go one step further and try to destroy the person they disagree with. Many people have lost their livelihoods and even more are afraid to express their opinion at all because of the disproportionate cost they might incur. People having been structurally shielded from mob justice in the past is a state worth returning to.
Mob justice hasn't been visible for a while often because regular justice was being used for direct oppression in its stead. Injustice is institutionalized, and so as long as the majority group does not see the mob, it does not see oppression even if it exists.
Tell me that for every person getting yelled at on Twitter you couldn't find countless more groups of minorities who have been denied justice over the years, whether because they are aborigines, black, lgbtqia+, or any other group of the kind. That open criticism and denial of cultures and ways of life wasn't just the default mode of operation. That one's life being valued less than someone else's property, beatings by police, harsher criminal sentences, and lack of equal rights wasn't just the mode of operation.
Getting yelled at on Twitter by people fed up with someone's bullshit is not even close to actual mob justice. It's just angry people shouting. Sometimes people shout enough that it turns to direct action (like letter-writing, which was used at least as far back as the 1800s), boycotts, and stuff like that. Today's cancel culture isn't mob justice any more than it was before, and it's not new.
Again, it's just a bunch of people who usually were never on the short end of the stick seeing its shadow pointed their way and freaking out.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot of the people "being cancelled" on twitter are only freaking out because for the first time in forever, they get the direct opinion of people reading their texts unfiltered, and they find out that they are prey to criticism. For example, Kelly Loeffler, claims to have been "cancelled" while being a sitting US senator. Cancel culture by popular action is not new (see letter-writing to TV stations, Frank Zappa ha…
Of course a version of it existed, but the going concern with cancel culture is that it doesn't require much thought or effort to cancel someone now. Social media allows you to easily join a mob without judging a person deeply by yourself.
Because previous mobs were well known for their thoughtfulness and judgement?
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#279When I read this part I thought it really resonated: > In adulthood we can recognize the four types by their distinctive calls, much as you could recognize four species of birds. The call of the aggressively conventional-minded is "Crush this essay!" He chose such a prescient example.
I can't put my finger on it, but there must be a name for this kind of logic. I think pgs arguments have more sustenance than just this, but it still rubs me the wrong way. I'll give an (extreme) example below.
1. Make a statement, calling out some part of the population as "inferior".
2. Note that a trait of belonging to the inferior class would be to disagree with the above statement.
3. Dismiss any criticism of the statement as coming from someone in this inferior class, and therefore being unable to give meaningful arguments.
Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism
#280Loved 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…
Some ideas are dangerous, and closely tied to both actions and policies. It is the responsibility of smart, powerful and conscientious people to acknowledge that. I am not saying that dangerous ideas should not be discussed. But we should be careful what we say in public. How should society regulate pedophilia, if at all? Nambla has opinions about that. Does Paul draw the line at legalizing pedophilia? Does he advocate that our most popular platforms embrace and encourage that debate? Race-based eugenics is another idea that has surfaced again and again. Why not optimize the human species through sterilization of its less desired members? That idea seems to march in lockstep with policies of extermination. Does Paul draw the line at that idea? If not, why not?