The Four Quadrants of Conformism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#661

Post by __alexs » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #573

oramit wrote: post #476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this narrative about not being free to talk about "dangerous" ideas is always left intentionally vague. We have so much free inquiry going on right now that I can't even keep track of it. If free inquiry is being eroded, one of the central claims in this essay, then that means we are coming down from a greater high. When was that high and would you prefer to go back to that time?

I'll hazard a guess: PG went out on a limb a few years ago, and actually published a long essay on one of the ideas that are very controversial in the sense implied in this essay. Namely, how tech tools as a primary driver for increasing wealth inequality will likely grow in importance, leading to increased wealth inequality, and that this is in itself not a problem. This was after years of pointing out that it's not…

I've read many of his essays on inequality and generally he over simplifies the economics and social issues involved so much it's almost impossible to critcise it. His style is so vague on these matters I'm not surprised he gets so much backlash. It's not good writing to be purposefully ambiguous.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#662

Post by joshuamorton » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

mikhailfranco wrote: post #581

sgentle wrote: post #464

Never thought I'd see the day that a pg essay crosses over with /r/politicalcompassmemes The problem with "discussing ideas" as a framing is that it exists in opposition to something. What is that something? Those whose position favours the status quo would read it in opposition to "not discussing ideas", which is obviously bad. However, to those who find the status quo untenable, the opposite position is "acting on…

I think you are wrong about the abolition of slavery. Slavery had existed in almost every society throughout history (and beyond, no doubt). The word slave comes from the Slavs of eastern Europe, who were captured and enslaved by the Turks and Barbary pirates. Then there was a unique event: Protestant (many non-conformist) groups in the wealthiest democratic country (Britain), decided to campaign on a fundamental pri…

France outlawed slavery in 1315 (later leaders undid this, but it was illegal for a time). Spain did as well in the 1500s. The Catholic Church condemned the slave trade in the 1600s.

So by the time the "non-conformists" were openly discussing whether or not slavery should be banned, the Conformists (the catholic church) had already stated it was bad.

> The fact that these countries are undemocratic unenlightened Arabs is also not a coincidence (Arabs seem to have an extra cultural level of racist arrogance, over and above the intolerance of other Muslims in non-Arab countries, such as, say, Iran or Indonesia).

Yiiiiiiiiiikes.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#663

Post by jostylr » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

monocasa wrote: post #563

missosoup wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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-...

Keep in mind that the book that is from, Humankind, while a hope filled book (I enjoyed it thoroughly), makes the point that when we get together, the bonds between people can lead them to do horrendous things to others. Our power to cooperate is our superpower and our kryptonite.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#664

Post by Tiktaalik » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 9:53 PM UTC

AlanYx wrote: post #204

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 feel the same way, but I think this era is much more directly similar to the "red guards" period during the Chinese cultural revolution than Soviet examples. Some of the parallels are just so direct -- students denouncing their professors, forcing them them to recant, the ideologies of the students growing more and more rigid and narrow through the conformity of the mob, until they often ended up even denouncing th…

Sounds scary so long as everything is discussed in such vague terms, which is why those decrying "cancel culture" always keep it in the theoretical space.

When the "conformity of the mob" is a concrete example, such as leftists fighting for basic human rights, eg. access to medicine so that you don't die, not getting murdered by the police, etc, well it's hard to make this sound troubling.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#665

Post by defen » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

NoodleIncident wrote: post #565

defen wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

It's not meant to be a trick question - more of a prompt that attempts to trigger someone to have one of the following thoughts "maybe I should be more charitable towards people who have unorthodox ideas, and should encourage other people to be charitable" OR "maybe I'm living in Plato's cave". I'm not trying to get anyone to agree to any particular heresy. Just to acknowledge the fact that every single thing that is taken for granted today (by goodthinkers) was a heresy at some point in the past. It doesn't mean we can't enforce social norms about what is acceptable; but rather that maybe we shouldn't necessarily be so enthusiastic about persecuting badthinkers. Note also that I'm talking about speech here and not criminal behavior.

> 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.

First of all I don't care about "cancel culture", and I don't think I'm persecuted, but also if you think the President and the GOP are the "ruling party" of America then I suspect there might be an unbridgeable gap in understanding. That's only true if you completely ignore the role of schools and universities, elite/prestige media, NGOs, the intelligence services, the judiciary...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#666

Post by gpanders » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:05 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,…

> What I think is ridiculous is to jump to the authoritarian/soviet comparisons, especially when the US is in the midst of a horrific authoritarian violent crackdown by a militarised police force.

I mean, this too warrants authoritarian/Soviet comparisons, does it not?

Besides, what happens when someone who is ideologically aligned with the angry Twitter mobs takes the reins of power and has the full force of the government behind them (including that militarized police force)? Can you not see why people might be concerned about systematic suppression of "bad" thoughts and ideas from the top-down (apropos the Soviet comparisons) in that scenario?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#667

Post by gpanders » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

rclayton wrote: post #419

domador wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think you're splitting hairs here. The greater issue is unaccountable, internet mob justice, of which "cancel culture" is one part.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#668

Post by zornthewise » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:08 PM UTC

kaymanb wrote: post #242

sideshowb wrote: post #20

> On the other hand, perhaps the decline in the spirit of free inquiry within universities is as much the symptom of the departure of the independent-minded as the cause. People who would have become professors 50 years ago have other options now. Now they can become quants or start startups. You have to be independent-minded to succeed at either of those. In defence of my chosen place in a university: being a quant…

I would also argue that the intersection of people who become quants / found successful startups and did so despite having a real shot at becoming a professor is pretty small. My only real data points are my own graduate school experience, but I haven't heard of anyone who was on a path to success in academia who didn't continue on down that path, or at least give it their absolute best shot before moving in. By succ…

No comment about the broader picture but there have been very smart people who have quit academia and gone into industry for whatever reason. Maybe the most famous is Jim Simons (he had an exceptional mathematical career before going into finance) but I know a few more examples.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#669

Post by tgflynn » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:10 PM UTC

This is a good essay, but I don't think he gets it quite right. I agree with the horizontal axis: conventional vs. independent but I don't think the view he presents of aggressiveness is quite accurate.

I do think that a major axis for classifying humans is the extent to which they desire to impose their views on others through coercion. This seems to be partly what Graham is trying to capture but his description doesn't seem to quite fit. In particular I have a hard time thinking of anyone who wants to impose their own independent-mindedness on others through coercion. Typically they just want the conventional minded to leave them alone so they can work on their independent ideas and hopefully prove them right. Of course they may want to convince a few people, such as investors, of the value of their ideas before they have been proven, but that isn't the same kind of coercion that the aggressively conventional-minded employ to silence dissent.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#670

Post by baryphonic » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 10:13 PM UTC

wdwecewc wrote: post #103

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…

[flagged]

I know at least two people who have been fired over the last month for wrongthink: one was due to a guy's stupidity; with the other, some woke vigilante went after him and intentionally took some jokes out of context. And this isn't an uncommon story. Did I imagine these two people losing their jobs, or did it really happen? Did they have their speech suppressed? And if it did happen, can you not see any parallels to how totalitarian regimes - Soviet or otherwise - operated?

> There is no real speech suppression going on (except, maybe, by the right wingers in power), but the leftists and mobs reminiscent of the soviet era certainly don't have any power right now.

During any coup d'etat, the perpetrators have two immediate objectives: isolate the existing leader and control the flow of information (usually the TV broadcasters or radio). This is true of almost every coup. For instance, a few years ago, the Turkish military attempted a coup against Erdogan, and were thwarted when he started making Facetime calls to the outside.[1] Schools are also often targeted over the longer term, and in places with state religion, the religious institutions are as well. I'd ask whether the "right wingers in power" are more isolated than any generic previous people in power, and I'd ask whether the "right wingers in power" have control over those culture institutions, or whether those are more guided by "the leftists and mobs" who "don't have any power right now."

The most we can really say is that some right wingers have titles, but I'd argue that they have little actual power. (The current right-winger can't even get his former National Security Adiver's charges dropped, which were filed during his presidency by his people.)

[1] https://www.vox.com/2016/7/16/12206304/turkey-coup-facetime