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The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#411

Post by [deleted] »

jessaustin wrote: post #377
jschwartzi wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey man, I agree completely that the police suck. But what I think is happening is there are two groups here: * 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…

Eventually there will be "ample evidence" that police are also members of this "second group". A Minneapolis cop vandalizing a business was identified on Facebook already. (Don't link to the police denials; rational observers take those as proof.) City governments have a lot easier access to pallets of bricks and the equipment to transport same than poor kids have. Authoritarians do the same thing over and over again…

[deleted]

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#412

Post by woopwoop »

aerosmile wrote: post #393

The amount of negativity in the comments is astonishing (and has been with regards to all of his recent essays). Which is perverse on a couple of levels: 1. PG's essay outlines a theory that the majority of the world is conventionally-minded and doesn't like to discuss new ideas. The comments here perfectly resemble that theory. PG wins. (Edit: at the time of writing, the comments were exclusively negative. This has…

I don't think the sort of ad hominem you are engaging in here is very useful, or convincing. Ad hominem is exactly what it is: you aren't arguing that the negative comments are wrong, just that the sort of people who make them are dumb conformists in (1), hypocrites in (2), and losers in (3).

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#413

Post by designium »

notacoward wrote: post #392

Worth noting that the "aggressively non-conformist" quadrant includes not just inventors and leaders but also criminals and trolls. For some reason the essay downplays that. Also, is it just me, or does it seem like most of pg's recent essays are attempts to "poison the well" against anyone who might try to hold him and his peers accountable for their contributions to the sorry state of our society? He doesn't direct…

I think you can apply his quadrant to usage of mask during Covid and the result speaks for themselves:

Let's play this out for mask wearing:

Top Left: Top doctors asking people to wear masks

Bottom Left: People who are wearing masks

Bottom Right: People who occasionally use masks, or alternatives, bandanas, etc.

Top Right: People who don't want to use masks because of freedom.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#414

Post by notsureaboutpg »

aerosmile wrote: post #393

The amount of negativity in the comments is astonishing (and has been with regards to all of his recent essays). Which is perverse on a couple of levels: 1. PG's essay outlines a theory that the majority of the world is conventionally-minded and doesn't like to discuss new ideas. The comments here perfectly resemble that theory. PG wins. (Edit: at the time of writing, the comments were exclusively negative. This has…

The most economically successful company in the world is Saudi ARAMCO so what does that say about PG's startup founder thesis?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#416

Post by sanxiyn »

notacoward wrote: post #392

Worth noting that the "aggressively non-conformist" quadrant includes not just inventors and leaders but also criminals and trolls. For some reason the essay downplays that. Also, is it just me, or does it seem like most of pg's recent essays are attempts to "poison the well" against anyone who might try to hold him and his peers accountable for their contributions to the sorry state of our society? He doesn't direct…

That's because social pressure is bad? I think it is generally agreed that court of public opinion is bad court.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#417

Post by snowwrestler »

vorpalhex wrote: post #308
oisdk wrote: post #177

Earlier 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…

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…

It's crazy to say "Everything the protestors are doing has probably set us back a decade." There have been literally millions of American citizens marching peacefully for change, and a very small number of bad actors.

There is no way you are informed or serious about what is going on if you are willing to make such broadly derogatory comments about one of the largest civil right movements in history.

And worse, taking the bad actions of a few, and using it to broadly discredit the valid actions of the many, is a textbook tactic for discrimination and maintaining the status quo. Who do you think you are helping by doing that?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#418

Post by jimbokun »

__alexs wrote: post #317

I honestly don't understand this perspective which seems central to a lot of pgs writing lately: "the customs protecting free inquiry have been weakened" Can anyone explain it? We are, right now, posting on the most expansive and weakly moderated communications platform humanity has ever had. You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of…

> You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with.

And you can quickly get someone fired or their business boycotted or doxxed or swatted if they express an opinion you don't like.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#419

Post by rclayton »

domador wrote: post #408
rclayton wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As oisdk points out, I would consider the very real threat of violence different than a celebrity getting their contract cancelled. But that’s an important point to also make. There’s a vast difference between a celebrity being cancelled and an average person. Cultivating popularity is a part of being a celebrity — so isn’t avoiding being cancelled a natural extension of that profession? As for regular people getting…

Maybe there's only a handful of "regular people" getting cancelled... but that's enough to create a chilling effect, scaring others into compliance with convention. A good example might be Walter Palmer, the hunter who killed Cecil the lion. He's rich, but wasn't a celebrity. What he did was legal, as far as he could tell. He didn't ask for his guides to break the law for him. Yet he was doxxed, received death threat…

I don’t know that we can attribute doxing or death threats to “cancel culture”. It’s certainly unjustified outrage. However, it does beg the question what exactly “being cancelled” means.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#420

Post by mononcqc »

jimbokun wrote: post #372
mononcqc wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

This is a complete non-sequitur. Let's respond to injustice and oppression, by trying to extend a little bit of injustice and oppression to other people who haven't experienced it yet, just because we can. How about less injustice and oppression all around?

The so-called cancel culture is not new, and the people complaining about it were generally fine with its presence (along with the presence of systemic injustice) as long as it wasn't pointed in their general direction.

I would take the plea for "less injustice and oppression all around" as more honest if it actually came before it started being a sort of perceived threat to the person complaining, and if they actually complained about the other types of injustice as well.

As far as I can see, most of the complaints about cancel culture have nothing to do with any other type of cancelling nor injustice, they're just people afraid that other people are now able to criticize them in ways much less important or impactful than said other people always had to contend with.

The expectation I have is that if the new wave of cancel culture -- often directed at people denying or perceived as reinforcing systemic issues -- were to stop, the "cancelled" would be content to stay in place, and calls for systemic changes would be far easier to ignore.

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