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The Four Quadrants of Conformism

paulgraham.com

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Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#51

Post by raverbashing »

dougabug wrote: post #12
andybak wrote: post #3

As always in discussions of "types of people" it's more nuanced than this. Someone can be both aggressively conformist over some issues (and towards some groups) and aggressively independent over others. In fact if you picture a stereotypical conspiracy-minded alt-right individual then the exhibit both behaviours at the same time about the same group. (individualist) "I won't do x because the government tells me I sh…

It reminds me of the early episodes of “Silicon Valley” where an endless parade of would be entrepreneurs proudly declares how they want to “change the world!” (to the point where it becomes comically tedious). “Aggressive independence” for its own sake (at scale) can simply degrade into its own form of ironic groupthink.

"Yes we're all individuals" effect, or this https://www.npr.org/2019/03/10/702063209/man-inadvertently-p...

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#52

Post by bencollier49 »

montebicyclelo wrote: post #7

> ...the latest wave of intolerance began in universities. It began in the mid 1980s, and by 2000 seemed to have died down, but it has recently flared up again with the arrival of social media. > the decline in the spirit of free inquiry within universities.. Are there some examples of what this might refer to?

No-platforming, amongst other things, I'd guess. And firing people for having the wrong views.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#53

Post by oisdk »

"Here's a taxonomy of people that I just made up. There are four types of people, classified by superficial characteristics. Actually, this classification is an extremely strong indicator for behaviour, certainly stronger than other indicators. How do I know this? I am very smart and I say so.

Based on this fact, I notice that the social-justicy types of today bear some superficial and extremely tenuous resemblance to the pro-slavery types of yesterday. Really makes you think."

I'm sorry but this comes across as total nonsense to me. Any "there are x types of people" stuff always reads as astrology for people with STEM degrees, especially when it's as ill-supported as the types given in this article.

Also the article is pretty ahistorical: being "pro-slavery" was absolutely not the unanimous consensus that we like to pretend it was today. There was widespread opposition to slavery: many viewed it as an obvious moral evil. France banned slavery in 1315, for goodness' sake. People knew it was wrong.

In actual fact, the type of people arguing against abolition were people in a much more similar position to Graham: the Economist famously urged delay with regards to abolition, fearing what freed slaves might get up to. Graham's notion that "actually, I'm much more like the abolitionists than slaveowners because we're both such iconoclasts" is extremely weak and, on its face, a little ridiculous.

(also: does Graham really think he's going against the grain with this stuff? Last I checked, opposition to "cancel culture" and censorship is about as mainstream a position as there is. It would be hard to pick a more "conventionally-minded" opinion than "I think free speech is good")

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#54

Post by chippy »

Miner49er wrote: post #39
chippy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ideas of social justice and equality spring from the independent quadrant. These ideas have become the rules that conventional quadrant follow and expose. This doesn't seem to contradict itself.

Social justice and true equality aren't conformist ideas though. We live at a time when wealth inequality is around the highest since our country has kept track and you think equality is a mainstream conformist idea?

Following on from the essay, the ideas are adopted by aggressively conventional minded even if they are "non conformist".

Other aggressively conventional minded people believe in the the rules of ever explosive growth, exploitation and free market capitalism.

The ideas do conflict with each other obviously.

The essay gives the example of abolitionism that some aggressively conventional minds back in history would be in support of slavery and other aggressively conventional mind would be opposing slavery.

Within the concept of the essay what does non conformist really mean? Are social justice and true equality ideas that belong only on the independent side of the quadrant?

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#55

Post by ggreer »

I enjoyed this essay, but I think PG missed one aspect of the recent cultural changes: Even though startups are founded by the aggressively independent-minded, they have insane amounts of ideological conformity.

Many people with beliefs that are widespread in the US (pro-life, pro-gun, Republican, etc) are now "in the closet" in the Bay Area. Don't believe me? 10% of San Franciscans voted for Trump in 2016. Yet of all the people I've worked with in the past four years, not a single one of them has publicly admitted to doing so. 14 percent of Californians own guns, but again, nobody I've worked with is "out of the closet" as a gun owner. That is an amazing coincidence. Let's say I've worked closely with 50 people in the past 4 years (the actual number is higher). If each one has a 10% chance of voting for Trump, there is a 99.5% chance that I've worked directly with a Trump voter. It's a 99.95% chance that I've worked with a gun owner. Yet based on everything I hear at work, you'd never suspect that such people exist. They're like dark matter.

If that's what life is like at companies founded by people who are aggressively independent-minded, I shudder to think how bad it is at companies run by the aggressively conventional-minded.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#57

Post by dougabug »

raverbashing wrote: post #51
dougabug wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of the early episodes of “Silicon Valley” where an endless parade of would be entrepreneurs proudly declares how they want to “change the world!” (to the point where it becomes comically tedious). “Aggressive independence” for its own sake (at scale) can simply degrade into its own form of ironic groupthink.

"Yes we're all individuals" effect, or this https://www.npr.org/2019/03/10/702063209/man-inadvertently-p...

Classic.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#58

Post by dgb23 »

chippy wrote: post #24
thom wrote: post #10

Good grief man, if you can only detect new ideas when they erupt from the mouths of startup CEOs, and you can't credit things like social justice and equality as anything but conformist (despite having been denied millions if not billions of people), then you're not 'independent', you're just incredibly narrow minded.

The ideas of social justice and equality spring from the independent quadrant. These ideas have become the rules that conventional quadrant follow and expose. This doesn't seem to contradict itself.

I think you are right in a subculture sense.

Many great progressive ideas and movements have been taken over by aggressive conformists. The ideas get perverted into something far less useful and overly specific.

Lets move the discussion into something less political!

In tech this happens too. Cargo cult engineering anyone? Agile methodology and OOP are two huge examples: they started as radical, useful ideas too. But often today people argue overly specific rules of implementation rather than asking why these things exist, where they came from and where they fit.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#60

Post by stopachka »

newacct583 wrote: post #47
stopachka wrote: post #31

Loved this essay. The phrase “aggressively conventional minded” is genius, and may contribute a lot towards the solution. As someone coming from an ex-soviet state, I’ve felt personal alarm bells ring more and more, as I experience the kind of intolerance and double speak America is heading into. Both the left and the right my opinion are missing the key points on freedom (the left suppressing and labeling, the right…

> the fundamental ideas that America is built on is focused so heavily on freedom that I trust the aggressively independent to protect, and the passively independent minded to innovate. If you saw that essay as a defense of existing social structures, how are you so sure you're not just one of the convention minded too?

To clarify how I see it -

I don’t see it as a defense of existing social structures, I see it as a defense of freedom. Some existing social structures promote it, and so would others that don’t exist yet (some ideas: social network that proliferates good debates, tool that shows a politician’s vested interests, laws on transparency and symmetry, a new kind of univ focused on experience in the real world, etc)

To answer the question, how do I know if I’m just one of the convention minded? -

I don’t think you can know with certainty, so you should question yourself, but there are a few signs:

- if your ideas are nuanced and don’t quite fit on an axis, sign of a good thing - if you read original sources, and reflect on your own experience to form theories, good sign - if you have gotten deeper on opposing views, and can articulate them well, good sign - if you notice most people in your social circle wouldn’t agree with some of your ideas, could be a good sign (conventionally minded folks are often conventionally minded to gain support of their immediate peers)

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