The Four Quadrants of Conformism • Hacker News Board

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#551

Post by philwelch » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:08 PM UTC

dencodev wrote: post #531

philwelch wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Speaking out against racism, bigotry, and systemic issues that overwhelmingly impact POC and the LGBTQ+ community is not what I consider "conventionally minded" It’s so unconventional that almost every Fortune 500 corporation has done so in unison. I think there’s a part of pg’s essay that’s doing a lot more work than people realize, because everyone keeps missing it: “ When measuring conformism, of course, you hav…

>It’s so unconventional that almost every Fortune 500 corporation has done so in unison. For literally the first time in history, and most of the Fortune 500 "speaking out" is just empty words without any real action. Look how progressive Amazon is, putting the BLM banner on their homepage for a couple weeks. Meanwhile Bezos is still perpetuating awful working conditions that disproportionately impact his POC employe…

So you have an external locus of control, that sounds like a personal problem but let’s roll with it. Maybe you’re right and the rules aren’t set by your peers, but that wasn’t the point of the example. The point was conventional-minded people can often feel rebellious by following a certain garden path of “conventional rebellion” that has been specifically laid out for them. That doesn’t actually make them independent-minded. In fact, you’re even worse off than you think because both the society that you live in and the specific way in which you choose to rebel against it are both completely outside your control and presented to you as closed systems that you have no input or contribution to.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#552

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:09 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #496

jessaustin wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If we truly do support these goals, we won't be sidetracked by potential insurance claims of large corporations. The victims of violence aren't large corporations; they're individual people whose homes and neighborhoods and businesses are not safe. The very people that the protesters claim to be protesting on behalf of. The valid claim of the protesters that the rule of law is not applied equally to everyone, as it…

Many effective protests do destroy property, and that's mostly the property of large corporations. Violence against individual humans is a separate issue. There are some indications that such violence has increased by a finite amount since the start of the COVID-19 shutdown. You're free to assume that this has nothing to do with the public health and economic situation (and self-interested voluntary decisions of police) and may be blamed entirely on protests, but you're announcing a deep personal bias by doing so. Wondering aloud about how the message may be undermined is mere concern trolling. We recognize it when racist troglodytes do it, and we also recognize it when "good liberals" do it.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#553

Post by free_rms » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:10 PM UTC

rclayton wrote: post #453

free_rms wrote: post #435

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we're very precisely estimating the reach and are appropriately terrified? If you can't get the people you want, but you really want to get somebody ...

And what are the consequences of you getting cancelled? Really? You lose your job? People are fired everyday for silly things or no reason at all. But would you really want to continue working for a company/culture so incapable of enduring free thought? Perhaps companies need to suffer the consequences of losing talent to realize how intellectually bankrupt this process is.

Yes, I lose my job, and for what? Some dysfunctional people get a dopamine hit that lasts 5 seconds before they need to go get someone else?

I've got a family.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#554

Post by dilandau » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

In which pg spills a few hundred words humblebragging about his maverick status.

I think the thing to measure is defiance rather than conformity, by the way. Much more interesting.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#555

Post by skellington » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:11 PM UTC

wdwecewc wrote: post #315

missosoup wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You probably don't know this word, but you're literally advocating for ochlocracy, which is the very thing I was talking about in the upstream comments. The mob has an infinite well of issues, the mob will never be satisfied. That's exactly how it transitions into totalitarianism. Pandering to the mob just adds more fuel to the fire. Police brutality etc. are issues that should certainly be addressed, and there's cou…

I would argue a mob is just a sort of tumor clinging onto the back of a very legitimate protest movement. My point, which I maintain, is that people like Paul are using this as an excuse to dismiss the movement in its entirety by selecting the (real) problems created by the mob. You would not be allowing the mob to rule by satisfying the entire group's demands. This is a function of very ordinary protests that have g…

"racist" and "witch" are just labels given to those that don't agree with you or are somehow disapproved of by the mob. Not surprisingly, their definitions just change as needed by the mob. The term racist is just as ephemeral as witch in the cancel-culture world.

Racist used to mean something around "believing one race was inherently better than another," but now it means anyone who doesn't agree with the BLM organization or who supports the Constitution, rule-of-law, Trump, etc..

In fact, if you've taken a look at modern critical race theory writings, you might be a racist if you:

- emphasize objective thought, cause and effect thinking - support nuclear families as a good structure - prefer individualism - "work before play" or believe that hard work is key to success

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#556

Post by jessaustin » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

jschwartzi wrote: post #423

jessaustin wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This fear is overblown. We've had racist violence from USA police for their entire existence. Nothing that has been tried so far has eliminated it. Now, let's try something else. I would refer you to NFAC, who have performed several armed public actions without causing an escalation in violence.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#557

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:13 PM UTC

GCA10 wrote: post #470

Lots of great ideas here -- but in keeping with all top-vintage Paul Graham essays, he takes his best points to about 130% of their validity. So I'd like to weigh in on this assertion: "To be a successful scientist, for example, it's not enough just to be right. You have to be right when everyone else is wrong." Not so. To be a successful scientist, you need to be orderly, fast and well-connected in finding all the r…

[deleted]

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#558

Post by defen » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:20 PM UTC

pnathan wrote: post #533

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 don't _think_ so. I think there are certain research areas which are interesting, but research outcomes are so potentially misused or politically incendiary that there are no research done by people of good will. If you're curious what those are, that would be any root of an arbitrary topic that is contentious in the US culture wars.

So going back to the Robert George quote from the essay - imagine you had been born a white male into a southern slave-holding family in 1750. What basis do you have for believing you would have been against chattel slavery? It seems like your only two options are "I just wouldn't have had an opinion on it" or "My opinions TODAY are uniquely correct for all time going forward". Unless you like to imagine future-you persecuting current-you.

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#559

Post by UglyToad » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:23 PM UTC

oisdk wrote: post #508

skellington wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rioters aren't protesters and there is nothing even close to "brutal" happening to the rioters. If anything, the state is showing remarkable restraint. Imagine if this shit was happening in China or Russia. If you/they get what you want out of all of this, a neo-marxist-anarcho-commune-socialist-green-whatever, no-rules, but lots of rules enforced randomly by the mob, THEN you'll see real brutal-ism like you saw in C…

> there is nothing even close to "brutal" happening to the rioters. If you aren't going to believe me, and if you're not going to believe your eyes with regards to the multiple clear videos of police brutality, then maybe you should listen to the multiple international human rights organisations which have called for an end to the police brutality? I mean what would even convince you that the police are brutalising p…

I agree.

I think it's a strong indicator when someone takes the most absurd or niche demand of a movement of millions of people seeking justice for some of the worst oppression and state violence as a way to dismiss the whole of that movement they're probably not operating in 100% good faith or they're consuming sources that aren't particularly balanced. Or they spend too much time on twitter, I'm definitely guilty of this, but twitter isn't the real world.

For example, I don't particularly care about the master/main debate about Github, it literally does not concern me, I do not care, but if people want it renamed, why not? And if someone thinks that demand (by whom, certainly not the protestors primary concern or probably even in the top 1000) is stupid why does that invalidate an entire movement to seek justice for people suffering horrendous violence?

These supposed cases of cancel culture just show how sad the lives of these supposedly cancelled people are.

In the UK there's supposedly a "trans mafia" intimidating journalists and beloved childrens authors. But there simply isn't, these anti trans obsessives think people commercially boycotting or calling them out are some malevolent oppressor. And they complain about it weekly to their audience of millions in the leading papers and magazines (Bari Weiss wasn't fired, she quit). Meanwhile in the real world trans people suffer huge mental health issues and violence, they literally want it to be easier to be who they are. I find the whole concept mystifying and can't begin to understand what it feels like to be trans. But trans people are telling us.

We should call people what they want to be called and make healthcare available to them. It's that simple. Someone is not being oppressed for not using the right pronouns they're being a jackass to vulnerable people and they should literally stop being obsessed with toilets. Life's too short, and if you're a poor African American or a trans person it's a whole lot shorter, on average, and anyone who uses rebranding food packaging to dismiss that truth is telling on themself

Re: The Four Quadrants of Conformism

#560

Post by frjalex » Fri, Jul 24, 2020, 6:27 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139

> 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 contains a strong assumption of nature over nurture. I push back on that. (A point of evidence being salivary cortisol correlations with high-stress childhoods and even prenatal environments.) Independent-minded cultures produce mor…

This is a fair point. To say that personality can be purely characterized in full using a few adjectives is grossly over-generalizing. It seems like a better model of "the four quadrants" would be to add a dimension, the dimension of personality when it comes to dealing with different things in life. For instance, while one can be passively conformist in a particular area, say, following the rules of society, one can be aggressively independent in one's own discipline or expertise.

For instance, you could expect a brilliant academic to be socially conformist, while academically aggressive and independent. Some sort of criminal or outlaw would be aggressively independent when it comes to following the laws of society, and maybe conformist when it comes to following the criminal discipline (this is when you have mobs and gangs --- outlaws find each other and form groups, too).

And it is a combination of these different styles that make up the overall personality profile.