The Four Quadrants of Conformism

> "Arbitrary" ways. It's spelled "arbitrary". There are a plethora of categorical little boxes that people can try to fit other people into, and some of those have value sometimes, but they often also cause people to see other people as only their boxes.

I'm sure PG would agree with your last sentence. But your point is irrelevant here.

> Imagine never having seen /r/PoliticalCompassMemes [2]. As gross as it is, this kind of quadrant-categorization isn't new.

Imagine assuming someone has never seen something just because they use an appropriate example to introduce a reader to a concept.

Also I don't see what's gross about the political compass.

> This is a setup for seeking minority status for free-thinkers. The problem with this is that "free" thought -- or "aggressively independent-minded" in PG parlance -- has no defined, characteristic ideas, by definition. A simple thought experiment here is the current political divide in the US. Are Trump voters the "aggressively independent-minded"? Are Democrats? Progressives? None of the above? If the definition of "aggressively independent-minded" contracts to, "me and a few people I like", then it's meaningless. Everyone with a strongly-held political belief in the US right now sees themselves as belonging to the rebel outgroup.

Whoever is loudly saying something that is unpopular is part of the "aggressively independent-minded" group. I think that should be pretty easy to understand. Note it does not mean they are right.

> This had to be the most astoundingly bad line in the whole essay. It rests upon a supernatural notion of some sense of "self" that is somehow independent of time and place; that the powerful formative forces of culture and society, especially throughout early childhood, would somehow not transform each and every one of us into utterly different people. There is no more polite way to say this than that that notion is, as far as I know, entirely unfounded in the field of human development.

Fair point, but I think one can assume that the probability of a person changing from one group to the other is symmetric, so in the end you'd get a similar distribution across the population regardless of where the individuals end up. The point he ultimately makes is still valid, most of them would have supported slavery.

> Okay, do yourself a favor, and read Joseph Yannielli's really excellent article, hosted on Princeton's site, on Princeton's role in opposing abolition: https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/princeton-and-abolitio....

> It's long, and it's historical, and it's forthright, and it's introspective. It also includes many quotes from educated opponents to abolition that, if you squint just a little bit, sound suspiciously similar to a lot of the "unacceptable" ideas that so many people right now are crying that they're no longer supposed to talk about outside the komfortable konfines of their klans.

The main similarity to today I spotted was young students being violent towards people with opposing views.

> Princeton themselves disagrees. At length.

One counterexample does not disprove the point. Do you really disagree with the idea that independent thinkers tend to go to university?

> This essay does not add to or resolve today's cultural conflicts in any amount.

I disagree and think it does add something.

* Protestors of police brutality who are in the main completely peaceful and capable of self-policing. These people tend to do normal protest things like blocking the streets, yelling at cars, holding signs, and similar. That's totally fine and should be protected by law. Their leaders are often seen keeping the rest of the group from pushing up against barricades and otherwise inciting violence.

* Small groups of what I can only describe as fringe counterculture people who are hiding in these protest groups waiting for an opportunity to incite violence. These people use the mask laws in many localities to hide their identity, and are doing things like dropping piles of bricks off in protest zones, throwing molotov cocktails into fast food restaurants and running, breaking windows and looting stores, and pushing the peaceful protestors into the riot control police. These are most certainly non-conformists, but we should not tolerate these behaviors if we want to live in a civil society. And the peaceful protestors are getting caught up in the dragnets.

The police make no effort to distinguish between the two groups in most cases. During protests in the 60's there's ample evidence that the police were part of the second group. So it's probable the violence is being incited by certain groups who are interested in silencing the peaceful protestors.

If that makes me an aggressive conformist to hold those views, then I will gladly be one. Non-conformity should not be the goal. And frankly if this is how it's defined, it's a stupid label.

Federal officials stage a major law enforcement operation in a city with zero coordination with the mayor of that city, who instead learns about it from twitter.

https://www.npr.org/sections/live-updates-protests-for-racia...

Operation Diligent Valor

A top U.S. Homeland Security official on Monday defended the federal crackdown on protests in Portland, including the use of unmarked cars and unidentified officers in camouflage gear and said the practice will spread to other cities as needed.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-global-race-portland-valo...

There's a couple problems with this though. First, these traits are sort of immutable - humans can't really change their personalities. Second, as you said, independent-mindedness can cause huge problems as well.