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The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#421

Post by ta1234567890 »

wincent wrote: post #299
ta1234567890 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ei…

pg: What's your HN username? ta1234567890: ta1234567890 pg: Hm, doesn't ring a bell... [looks awkwardly into cocktail glass]

You described pretty much exactly what happened to me. And I felt like crap. Nevertheless I still applied to YC afterwards.

It sucks how people in power sometimes are assholes and we put up with them, probably just because of their power.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#422

Post by domador »

detaro wrote: post #387
domador wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[This is not a direct reply to your comment, but a comment on Hacker News itself.] It's interesting that a couple of minutes ago, I was unable to even attempt to reply to wrren's comment. It was grayed out, and I guess you can't reply to grayed-out comments. I read the comment and saw an exploration of ideas, not something that would be destructive to the Hacker News community or experience. I reloaded the page, the…

Deep threads hide the reply button temporarily as an anti-flamewar thing (You can still reply by clicking on the timestamp to go to the comments permalink, it's just intended to be a soft deterrent against too much back-and-forth). Purely downvotes shouldn't disable replies, only if a comment gets killed (by flags or automated filters) it gets disabled.

So, it's not related to whether a comment is grayed out, but to how deep it is and how recently it was posted. That's helpful to know. Thanks!

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#423

Post by jschwartzi »

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…

The problem I have with violence is that there will always be people who are caught in the crossfire. Violence begets violence and you have to be prepared to lay down arms at some point or you will always be at war. My fear is mainly that when people resort to violence, the same people who hide out in the peaceful groups come out of the woodwork, and they take advantage of the situation to their own ends.

Violence is ugly, and it's hard to control, especially when it's group-on-group violence. It's surprisingly easy for the oppressed to become the oppressor when the smoke settles. If you have a way to avoid that, then go right ahead.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#424

Post by [deleted] »

enoch_r wrote: post #382
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…

Kindness Yoga shut down after their pro-BLM posts online were criticized as "performative activism" by employees: https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/29/kindness-yoga-closure-dur... A woman in Kentucky was fired after 20 years from her job as a Hearing Instrument Specialist after she said she didn't support BLM in a facebook video: https://reclaimthenet.org/tabitha-morris-cancel-culture/ (Her GoFundMe was also shut down.…

[deleted]

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#425

Post by zucker42 »

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…

> If you don't like his writing and his world view (the brave startup founder is the hero), then why come to HN? Why support someone's website and accelerator/fund if you think they are so wrong?

Simple. I'm trying to do exactly what Paul Graham encourages (and what I believe in), and engage fruitfully with people with different ideologies and ways of thinking than me. Plus, there are sometimes interesting technical articles posted here.

> The comments here perfectly resemble that theory

Really? I don't see this, so maybe some examples would help. Mostly I see people disagreeing with Graham in unique ways. That doesn't seem like conformism. Would it be better if only people who accepted his premise commented. Isn't that exactly the opposite of what Graham wants (respect for his ideas among people who disagree with him)?

Your third point begs the question.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#426

Post by cmorgan31 »

jimbokun wrote: post #384
cmorgan31 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are not addressing the point that the society at large has to continue to trust institutions to alleviate concerns of corruption by the institution. The mob is not formed in a vacuum. Democracy, rule of law, and government only have value when trust in those pillars of our society have not been eroded to the point where large swaths of people form a mob to carry out their own justice. It’s been made abundantly cl…

"I don’t focus on cancel culture because I’m concerned more with the erosion of our voting rights and the dismantling of our institutions by our own citizens." Maybe we need to focus on both as manifestations of the same disease, even though one is much worse than the other?

Of course, but I don’t have the personal bandwidth to mentally deal with every issue we need to resolve as a society. I get around this by not out of hand dismissing concerns by others but I also can’t take an active stance in their solutions. This is likely a more common story than we want to admit and the numerous issues across our political spectrum fragment our chances at a unified response to the problem.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#427

Post by clomond »

jkraker wrote: post #188

While I agree with some of this, there's a hubris in it that I find a bit distasteful. It seems to claim that there's only one type of person needed for society to thrive. Not surprisingly, it's the type that most aligns with who he identifies himself to be. I think that the article is using caricatured descriptions of two categories that are more broad (people who are oriented toward change and those who are oriente…

I did not interpret it as hubris.

Rather, I viewed it as the differences in deliverers of progress versus orthodoxy.

“Classic progressivism” / “Enlightenment” principles have across the globe been under attack from all over the place, including from within the depths of the worlds leading institutions.

Given that so much of the peace, prosperity and progress (both socially and technologically) have been driven by safe environments for the “aggressive independents” - I view this essay as a call out for us to do better.

Those who value stability are an important part to ground the bad new ideas from taking hold in the vein of progress, but traditionalists are by very definition not how progress is actually made.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#428

Post by notacoward »

sanxiyn wrote: post #416
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.

Do you realize that you just used an appeal to popularity in your argument against popularity?

When (or whether) social pressure is good is a very highly debatable point, and in that debate it's important not to conflate kinds/levels of social pressure. Calling someone out for using the N-word is one thing. Throwing someone in jail for having the wrong political views is quite another. If you, or pg, or anyone else wants to discuss good and bad forms of social pressure, the intellectually honest thing to do would be to make a direct case, not engage in these pigeonholing and semantic exercises to cast others' views in a bad light.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#429

Post by rclayton »

free_rms wrote: post #378
rclayton wrote: post #322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have we started killing cancelled people? Who has been “cancelled” anyways? What punishments have they endured? A lost job at a very public position? As someone wisely pointed out, the only person possibly going to be jailed in the #MeToo movement will be Harvey Weinstein. Many comedians and politicians have recovered. Look at Al Franken - polls show he’s electable in his state (by the group that ostracized him no le…

That's actually a great summary of the beef with cancel culture -- it only punches down. They can't touch Trump, or Ben Shapiro, or any of the other people that they really hate. Those people's actual jobs are to say things progressives hate. Who can the cancelers get? Moderate liberals, working in liberal enclaves, who said the wrong thing. Get'em! That'll make me feel better.

That’s actually my point. Overestimating the reach of cancel culture because you live in a liberal enclave.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#430

Post by sanxiyn »

notsureaboutpg wrote: post #414
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?

It proves divine right of kings in general, and House of Saud in particular. Sounds right to me.
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