The Four Quadrants of Conformism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#561

Post by mikhailfranco » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

ta1234567890 wrote: post #274

bambax wrote: post #109

I 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 ei…

There is an arrogant pretense in self-imposed naming and carving up the world into your personalized compartments.

It seems PG has now stooped to the infamous Quadrant Diagram beloved by management consultants and other superficial minds who ought to know better...

The ribbonfarm guy and Eric Weinstein also come to mind, with their look-at-me coining of petty neologisms and vacuous abbreviations. They may be smart and reflective, but their heavy-handed narcissism drowns out any underlying insights.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#562

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:32 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #519

war1025 wrote: post #511

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Being an enforcer or a rule breaker is very much dependent upon what the rules are. This gets left out of so many conversations, and is a very important point. The essay touches on it a little with the slavery bit, but I feel like the rest of the essay downplays it.

That seemed like the whole point of the essay to me and not a side note. His claim is that rule-orientation and assertiveness are present already in childhood (which I think is true), and that those are what determine people's behavior toward rules, not the specifics of the rules themselves.

> and that those are what determine people's behavior toward rules, not the specifics of the rules themselves.

Maybe abstract, theoretical sense. But adults already hold pretty concrete opinions on most rules and an aggressive person's obedience or defiance is dictated by the person's agreement. Also, humans can be opportunists and see enforcement or defiance as a means of grabbing or welding power & influence.

There's ample evidence of this in action. The police selectively enforce laws all the time. Or the neighbor that calls the city to complain that you're violating zoning by having too many cars while they, themselves have an illegal fence and refuse to deal with it. Authoritarians by nature do not like it when the rules apply to them, but love enforcing them on others.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#563

Post by monocasa » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:36 PM UTC

missosoup wrote: post #356

AlanYx wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>one big difference is that the Red Guards were created by Mao as a way to purge the party of his enemies... No -- that's not the case, and that's precisely why I think the parallel to what is happening now is so strong. The Red Guards started in 1966 as a student movement. They later developed a manifesto, which Mao thought he could leverage to his own advantage, so he endorsed its broadcast. This fanned the flames…

This comment is 100% correct and the fact that most people here misunderstand the Red Guards movement is the terrifying proof that they have no idea what we're dealing with in the US right now. This ideology is not something that strives for or can be steered into a productive outcome, it inherently wants to expand its reach and list of enemies until it takes over the entire world or someone shuts it down. It's the c…

I mean, Lord of the Flies is fiction.

In real life, the boys stranded on a deserted island made a pact to never quarrel, and kept that pact for a half century.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/may/09/the-real-lord-...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#564

Post by Qworg » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:37 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #478

clomond wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 saf…

> I did not interpret it as hubris. I mean, he refers to the "passively conventional minded" as "sheep". Whether or not that's true, it's still dripping with condescension. I agree with the parent commenter. I largely agree with PG's essay, but it's also telling that he doesn't see (or at least, doesn't comment) on any potential negatives from "aggressive independently minded" folks. If anything, a lot of the current…

Also, there are wolves in both of the "aggressive" camps - people who would acquire power by any means necessary, no matter the costs to others. It is very hard to draw the line between "failed visionary" and "power hungry manipulator".

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#565

Post by NoodleIncident » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:40 PM UTC

defen wrote: post #510

pnathan wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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? I'm wondering what kind of wack opinion he has that he doesn't want to talk about, and these essays are providing cover for. I'm extremely loathe to blame specific individuals for the state of systems. I do think…

> I'm wondering what kind of wack opinion he has that he doesn't want to talk about, and these essays are providing cover for. This is the exact thing the essays are about, though! To use a question from a previous pg essay - I'm not even asking you to share it, just asking if it exists - do you hold any opinions that you believe to be true, yet you dare not share with anyone for fear that you would lose your job and…

> I'm not even asking you to share it, just asking if it exists - do you hold any opinions that you believe to be true, yet you dare not share with anyone for fear that you would lose your job and all social connections if you were to reveal that you held that opinion?

This just seems like a trick question to me. If you say yes, then you agree with him; if you say no, you admit you're just a sheep with no independent thoughts.

The idea of a lone free thinker who's come up with a forbidden truth also seems silly. The stuff people are getting "cancelled" for are not independent unique thoughts; they're stuff a huge group agrees with, including the current US president and ruling party. You also won't get shunned by all of your social connections for expressing it, you'll retreat back to the same group of people that reinforced those opinions to the status of "truth" in the first place, to reassure each other about how persecuted you all are.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#566

Post by biophysboy » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

oisdk wrote: post #402

biophysboy wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter warriors are absolutely a small piece of the pie, but I think you could say they are the online face of the amorphous force that the authoritarian secret police are attacking. Each unit of the force is trivial (rioters are a trivial part of the protests, campus activists are a trivial part of the student body, AOC is a trivial part of congress, moral clarity journalists a la Wesley Lowery are a trivial part o…

Listen, if people want to say that “cancel culture” is a real phenomenon and it has a chilling effect on speech that’s one thing: I’d even be sympathetic to that point of view (although, as I said, I think it’s vastly overblown by people like Graham who are simply experiencing criticism from a broader range of people due to social media). What I think is ridiculous is to jump to the authoritarian/soviet comparisons,…

Sure - I get it. The violent crackdowns are big part of why I'm making authoritarian/soviet comparisons, in addition to the institutional battles in universities and media/tech companies.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#567

Post by waterhouse » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:49 PM UTC

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?

It's an exceedingly common deflection. "Group X has suffered and/or is suffering worse, therefore your complaint can be ignored." It tends to come up sooner or later when someone complains about the negative impact of certain types of policies.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#568

Post by Qworg » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

domador wrote: post #380

wrren wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Taibbi's had a few good articles on this recently. Some excerpts: "Cancelations already are happening too fast to track. In a phenomenon that will be familiar to students of Russian history, accusers are beginning to appear alongside the accused. Three years ago a popular Canadian writer named Hal Niedzviecki was denounced for expressing the opinion that “anyone, anywhere, should be encouraged to imagine other p…

[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…

All communities, including this one, require curation and moderation. The down vote is a way to drive out "non-HN" ideas out of the square, as determined by the broad subset of HN users (and a small number of super users).

It isn't aggressively conventionally minded, it is pro social, as well as likely the only way to maintain a level of discourse that the majority wants.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#569

Post by erichocean » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:54 PM UTC

jfarmer wrote: post #545

acpetrov wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Society's only protagonist is the individual

Society isn't a story and therefore doesn't have a protagonist.

Did you just invalidate your own prior comment? Very meta…or maybe your comment was just about your own insecurities, relative to pg?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#570

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:55 PM UTC

ordinaryradical wrote: post #529

jfarmer wrote: post #516

If you write several essays about "the way society works" and they consistently resolve to a protagonist who happens to be very much like yourself, you're probably writing about your own mind, not society.

It's ironic that he describes social media as an own goal but there isn't the introspection accompanying it that would lead to the obvious point you've made so well. Everyone in SV wants to be "up and to the right" in every quadrant map of anything. How comforting to simplify life to those terms, to exceptional winners and conventional deadweight. But if society takes your myopic vision and resulting creation and the…

[deleted]