The Four Quadrants of Conformism

It would be interesting if he developed a theory of "unsayable" things based on examples. One really good one is Freud's theory of infantile sexuality:

https://www.bartleby.com/278/2.html

It's completely true that four year old boys get erections and play with themselves (I did), don't think about it all when they are ten, and then tend to think about it a lot when they hit puberty.

It is the basis for understanding how sexual abuse hurts children, but say it and people will report you to the FBI as a pedo.

If Graham were serious he could make a list of 20 diverse examples like this.

> I'm not sure what your point is.

You denied a claim that "every new technology benefits some and harms others" by doubting that invention of a cart could cause harm. I'm suggesting a way that it could.

> the morality of a use case doesn't have much to do with the efficacy of a technology

I agree, but I believe it was morality that was under discussion, not efficacy.

Isn't it funny how things like this are never written by the boring types? It's always those wild, maverick, enlightened types seeking to describe themselves and, along the way, describe others, but mostly to describe themselves in flattering terms, with just a light veneer of modesty. (The self-assessed MBTI INTJs are just fantastically entertaining at this.)

"All great ideas come from us," beams the self-described aggressively-independent-minded, "and if we aren't allowed to champion horrible ideas, why, the world just won't be able to get on without us."

There are so many coarse assertions in this argument, without any solid foundations or evidence or even thoughtful observation. Right from the first sentence:

> One of the most revealing ways to classify people is by the degree and aggressiveness of their conformism.

"Arbitrary" ways. It's spelled "arbitrary". There are a plethora of categorical little boxes that people can try to fit other people into, and some of those have value sometimes, but they often also cause people to see other people as only their boxes. [1]

> Imagine a Cartesian coordinate system...

Imagine never having seen /r/PoliticalCompassMemes [2]. As gross as it is, this kind of quadrant-categorization isn't new.

> There are more passive people than aggressive ones, and far more conventional-minded people than independent-minded ones. So the passively conventional-minded are the largest group, and the aggressively independent-minded the smallest.

This is a setup for seeking minority status for free-thinkers. The problem with this is that "free" thought -- or "aggressively independent-minded" in PG parlance -- has no defined, characteristic ideas, by definition. A simple thought experiment here is the current political divide in the US. Are Trump voters the "aggressively independent-minded"? Are Democrats? Progressives? None of the above? If the definition of "aggressively independent-minded" contracts to, "me and a few people I like", then it's meaningless. Everyone with a strongly-held political belief in the US right now sees themselves as belonging to the rebel outgroup.

> Since one's quadrant depends more on one's personality than the nature of the rules, most people would occupy the same quadrant even if they'd grown up in a quite different society.

This had to be the most astoundingly bad line in the whole essay. It rests upon a supernatural notion of some sense of "self" that is somehow independent of time and place; that the powerful formative forces of culture and society, especially throughout early childhood, would somehow not transform each and every one of us into utterly different people. There is no more polite way to say this than that that notion is, as far as I know, entirely unfounded in the field of human development.

> Princeton professor Robert George recently wrote...

Okay, do yourself a favor, and read Joseph Yannielli's really excellent article, hosted on Princeton's site, on Princeton's role in opposing abolition: https://slavery.princeton.edu/stories/princeton-and-abolitio...

It's long, and it's historical, and it's forthright, and it's introspective. It also includes many quotes from educated opponents to abolition that, if you squint just a little bit, sound suspiciously similar to a lot of the "unacceptable" ideas that so many people right now are crying that they're no longer supposed to talk about outside the komfortable konfines of their klans.

Try and keep that Princeton article in mind, full and fresh, and then read this next part from Graham:

> For the last couple centuries at least, when the aggressively conventional-minded were on the rampage for whatever reason, universities were the safest places to be.

Princeton themselves disagrees. At length.

This essay does not add to or resolve today's cultural conflicts in any amount. When the last thing you have left for an idea is that it's special because you're special and it's your idea, then it's time to consider the possibility that other people might have some pretty strong arguments against it.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmVkJvieaOA&feature=youtu.be..., the whole video is good though.

[2]: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/10/Po..., for the fortunately unaware.

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 brief rundown of ideas and they were wrong to expect empirical evidence of anything I claimed as fact.