Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 882 posts

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#361

Post by free_rms »

oisdk wrote: post #275
ptero wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Losing your livelihood, in a nation famous for it's relative lack of safety net, is in fact a big deal.

Here's the thing, you don't have to pick a side so hard. It's not, either we get this dude fired for citing a study about the 1968 riots or you're in favor of the border patrol arresting citizens without due process. These things are actually highly unrelated, and both can be bad.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#362

Post by bob33212 »

steveeq1 wrote: post #344
bob33212 wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think your are well informed here. They are protesting the systemic racism that makes some cops feel like they can get away with leaving their knee on a black man's neck for 8 minutes killing him. Maybe you don't think that systemic racism is a major problem or maybe you think that people should focus on other issues instead? But your graph is incorrect.

I feel that the "systemic racist" is overplayed, yes. And the graph is sourced.

Neither of those sources prove that BLM is only about white on black murder. Check out this source if you are interested in learning about the goals of BLM https://blacklivesmatter.com/about/

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#363

Post by jimbokun »

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…

Obviously the Trump administration is, by far, the bigger threat.

The trouble is the left are staring to adapt his tactics.

At the beginning of Trump's term, there was a lot of concern about how Trump was trying to silence the press through his rhetoric about "fake news" and threatening spurious libel claims, trying to shut down speech he didn't like.

Now the left is adopting the mirror image policy of trying to shut down speech they don't like.

Very few are left to actually stand up for the principle of granting freedoms, even to people you don't like or disagree with.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#364

Post by wtetzner »

Funes- wrote: post #281
ziddoap wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think scientific papers are the only place that should be expected to, when purporting something as fact, be well... factual. Funny enough, all throughout my many years in academia I had to provide sources for anything I stated as a fact in an essay (including opinion pieces). I should of just let my professors know that I wasn't providing them a scientific paper -- I was just attempting/trying to provide a b…

>Funny enough, all throughout my many years in academia I had to provide sources for anything I stated as a fact in an essay (including opinion pieces). That requirement obeyed that academic institution's criteria, not the genre's traditional nature. You either were being tested by them or published something with their name attached to it, so it's only normal that they established the empirical validity of your writ…

> I hope your "many years in academia" weren't spent in anything even remotely related to linguistics. And that your editors there corrected your grammar, as well.

Please don't use personal attacks.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#365

Post by luckylion »

jacobush wrote: post #337
vorpalhex wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're engaging in a straw man of both sides and it makes me want to disregard your argument entirely. > you choose only to talk endlessly about tweets like... Do you really think that's what people are complaining about here? Not the professors being fired, the well known economists being forced to resign? There was a professor who lost his status running a residence hall because he was on the legal defense team for…

But the reform way hasn't worked very well, if at all, either. Not saying that means one should revolt or anything, just that America seems like it's stuck between a rock and hard place, currently.

>But the reform way hasn't worked very well, if at all, either.

You don't see a difference between USA, 1960 and USA, 2020?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#366

Post by getpost »

I suggest not putting people into quadrants and making an us-vs-them argument. Everyone is exactly the same and also completely unique. At times, some people appear to catalyze change, but it's everyone else that actually makes the change.

There has always been an "immune" reaction to new ideas. That is not going to change for the foreseeable future. Don't worry about it, just keep innovating.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#367

Post by ziddoap »

Funes- wrote: post #348
ziddoap wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy you sure got me by calling out my grammar. I'm writhing in embarrassment. Good to know that outside of academia that things stated as fact have no requirement or expectation of being factual. I will temper my expectations in the future.

>Good to know that outside of academia that things stated as fact have no requirement or expectation of being factual. Stop putting words in my mouth. I have no desire to keep pointing out straw man fallacies. Academia tends to have formal requirements of that kind. Personal blogs don't, for instance. That's the explanation behind me--and other people, surely--not expecting an elaborate empirical demonstration of eve…

>>he plays fast and loose with the facts

>Essays aren't scientific papers.

Seems like you are alluding that essays do not require facts. I guess I misinterpreted.

>expecting an elaborate empirical demonstration of everything the man writes on his site

Talk about putting words in someones mouth. Nowhere did I say everything written on his site needs "elaborate empirical demonstration".

Are you unable to finish a comment without throwing some sort of insult?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#368

Post by austincheney »

ben509 wrote: post #343
austincheney wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Someone can be both aggressively conformist over some issues (and towards some groups) and aggressively independent over others. Yes and no. In a purely objective context conformity is a personality mode shaped by a person's social reference group and the devotion or conformance to a single idea rests on the reinformance of the local group. For a highly conformant person you can change their opinion on a subject by…

> From extremely conforming people originality is met with immediate hostility. I'd submit a common case of that is someone with a new idea and being confronted with all the reasons it will never work. And that really does seem like a function of personality. The people saying why it won't work aren't being close-minded; they're gaving the idea a listen and thinking about it critically. They're may not even being out…

Its not so much about ignorance or close-mindedness but insecurity and fear masked as offense, which is different than rationally forming doubts.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#369

Post by ben509 »

hrktb wrote: post #29

As for most attempts to classify people, it should be strongly stated that any single human would fits several quadrants depending on the subject, the phase in their life they are in, or even the mood of the day. I read this two dimensional presentation only as device to discuss a theoretical point, and not something that could have any practicality. In particular, I think a lot of people switch from the "sheep" quad…

> They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken...

What the rules are is complicated by all the unwritten rules. Many people speed, but never more than 10 over the limit, and they'll even get irritated by people driving at the posted limit.

> PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life.

The problem is they'll also conform to rules that don't let others live their own life. So if there's a clique of people, the aggressive conformist might mark an outsider for ostracism, and the passive conformist will dutifully uphold that.

But "sheep" is awful. I always think of the cringey post of, "Imma sheepdog protecting the sheep from the wolves." Unspoken: ...so the shepherd can then send the lambs to slaughter.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#370

Post by locopati »

missosoup wrote: post #110
wdwecewc wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

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.

How do you feel about the "mental homogeneity to the point of militant aggression towards dissenting views" when applied to a denial and perpetuation of aggression towards Black, Latinx, and Indigenous people and towards women? a belief that militarized police are just fine or that police brutality isn't a problem? a belief that gender is a binary or that love and intimacy are only allowable between opposites in that binary?

in the USA, the dominant mindset (if evaluated by the current political) is exactly "mental homogeneity to the point of militant aggression towards dissenting views" and it's not coming from progressive views, it's coming from the authoritarians

this whole idea of 'cancel culture' is just as much calling for the fainting couch as 'political correctness' was

Post reply on HN