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 militarizing).
Yet, as PG points out, the independent minded are good at figuring out solutions. No matter what, 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.
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 political alignment, which is a very powerful weapon to shut down discourse.
This rising culture is freedom and diversity in all things except thought. This is how totalitarian regimes form. This is what my parents dumped their entire life savings into escaping, and here I am watching it rise again.
He built the ultimate machine to attract conformists who want to get another badge. First the conformists will push out individualists by their sheer bulk and better ability to navigate the approval process. (It's their core competency in life!)
Y Combinator is a plant that has grown too large for its pot. Someday something is going to go wrong, there are so many people going through it that sooner or later there is going to be a scandal. Graham is not on a growth trajectory, and sooner or later decay is going to catch up with him. I don't know exactly how, but the logic of exponential growth will to discover it.
If he wants to do anything except "richmansplain" about how there's some kind of problem that he can't talk about except in abtruse code (e.g. I am clearly agonized about something, but I have to draw four quadrants to pretend that I'm thinking deeply about it rather than obscure what bothers me) because if he was able to put his ineffable thoughts into words then somebody is going to do something completely indescribable.
He won't listen but here is my advice.
Graham has accomplished as much as he can in the place he is at. If he stays where he is, he can at best tread water, at worst various problems are going to catch up with him, he's going to paint himself into a corner, the amoral conformists attracted to his organization are going to create a scandal, the u.s. becomes unable to support s.v. b ecause capital has waged an investment strike against most of it, etc.
If he leaves Y Co in the hands of people he trusts (does he trust anyone?) and spends a year or two doing something else in a different place I think he'll have something interesting to say and he
It's sad, but reading his essays feels so much like reading Peirs Anthony, it is just the same essay over and over again with very little feeling he's grown. Maybe he needs to hang out with some adults, admit that being a zillionaire doesn't make you immortal, that you're always going to be frustrated because your species is split into two genders, etc.
Some ideas are dangerous, and closely tied to both actions and policies. It is the responsibility of smart, powerful and conscientious people to acknowledge that. I am not saying that dangerous ideas should not be discussed. But we should be careful what we say in public. How should society regulate pedophilia, if at all? Nambla has opinions about that. Does Paul draw the line at legalizing pedophilia? Does he advocate that our most popular platforms embrace and encourage that debate? Race-based eugenics is another idea that has surfaced again and again. Why not optimize the human species through sterilization of its less desired members? That idea seems to march in lockstep with policies of extermination. Does Paul draw the line at that idea? If not, why not?
> 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?
Thinking little more on this. Today's independent become tomorrow's conventional. Not sure if the same person maintains the independence or gets tied to their idea and in a way loosing the independence. In scientific community too new ideas are challenged by conventional great scientist sometime.
There's a subtype he doesn't mention but I think deserves notice and is especially pertinent to today's environment. That is, the conventionally-minded who is convinced they are die-hard independently-minded.
People like this come across by chance doctrine which appeal to a special part of themself, be it religious, political, or social doctrine. They hardily embrace the newfound doctrine and denounce others as having fundamentally the wrong framework of thinking. They come across like-minded people and make blanket statements against their detractors and constantly reformulate the perception of their ideology to be in the right.
In one sense, they believe themselves to be highly individualistic because they go against what they perceive to be the overall grain of society. This lends them conviction.
But in reality, their beliefs are not actually contrarian or minority beliefs, and these people would never had nurtured these beliefs or had the courage to actually publicly express them without the implicit support of some large chunk of society.
I believe this to be the reality today. So many people are deluded in thinking they are the small, under-represented, minority, oppressed group when they actually function as the oppressors to people who are sincerely independently-minded.
And when one who is independently-minded sees another who is deluded they are independently-minded, but in reality is aggressively-conventional, we cannot help but notice the hypocrisy.
I think the example of the students of the Princeton professor is very similar to this subtype:
> I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it.
Most people, myself included, like to believe that they are independently-minded. Given that most people aren't independently-minded, most people are wrong.
I don't share many of the views in Paul's essay, but there was one point he made with which I emphatically agree: like Paul, I too believe anyone who disagrees with me is just too small-minded to understand my argument.
> There is a subtype that is especially pertinent... the conventionally-minded who is convinced they are die-hard independently-minded.
> I believe this to be the reality today. So many people are deluded in thinking they are the small, under-represented, minority, oppressed group when they actually function as the oppressors to people who are sincerely independently-minded.
This right here is the fundamental undercurrent of what's happening is society.
One of the topics that PG mentions is heresy. The topic of discussing things that a group feels shouldn't be discussed. I wish he went into more detail about it, because if you do it flushes out some interesting ideas.
Heresy exists in two important directions. Heresy against people in power, and heresy against people without power. Upwards heresy, and downwards heresy.
Upwards heresy usually is quashed, ignored or mocked. People without power performing heresy are "dealt with" by those with power. Either they are made to pay an immediate cost, or their view/opinion is not allowed to make it into the collective mainstream conversation. It gets labeled as wrong, inappropriate or simply dismissed. Most of the time you don't even hear about it because those without power have little recourse to elevate the visibility of the retaliatory actions. People with power define what heresy is - and it's defined to be the things they object to.
Downward heresy (people in power performing it) is usually entirely invisible. The people without power who are the "targets" of it have no relative power to respond to it. They don't have enough sway in the system to object to it, to call it out. If they did, they would face large repercussions by those in power that committed it. Because people with power usually can dictate what is acceptable discourse, downward heresy is usually deemed acceptable. As well, they use the term heresy to effect more power. To limit what groups can and can't do. Imagine the church using the term heresy to limit what followers can do to avoid competition religions, or to justify wars by accusing other groups of heresy.
Where things become interesting is where people without relative power gain a bit to the point they are able to call a subset of things committed by those in power as heresy. They can call out downard heresy. Here is where things blow up. The group accustomed to defining what is acceptable and not, no longer fully controls that, but they still have enough power, or influence to raise a storm when it happens. They will immediately turn to using any any all methods they have to shout how unfair it is that they can't think these thoughts, or utter these phrases. While they make thing this, of course this isn't truly the case. They enforce heresy rules all the time, but noone questions it when they do it - it just accepted as a normal part of society. The problem is that a group they deem without power, or with lesser power is holding influence over them. And that is what they can't stand. This is the group in power claiming to be oppressed. This is the majority claiming to not be. This is what causes friction in society, as it is a group with power revolting at the idea that a group with less power can affect them.
A Christian in the US is not under-represented (compared to non-Christians). And yet I hear so much of this claim recently. A man in this country, is not oppressed (in comparison to women). A heterosexual isn't oppressed. I'm a member of multiple groups above, and yet know this to be true.
Those groups (and others) can still face extreme difficulties. And live lives waaaay worse than members of other groups - but the idea that they are a under-represented oppressed group is flat out wrong.
The friction you hear is that these are groups with power, don't really don't like the fact that members of other groups in these same dimensions have some amount of power to now call out things that aren't ok. In general these dominant power groups have never had anyone other group have any influence over what they can and can't do, while they have help enormous amounts of power over what the other groups in these dimensions are able to do and the consequences they are subject to. As the saying goes, if you're always used to being over someone, being equal feels unfair.
The most notable part, is that the only type of heresy that PG writes about is the third of these. The least interesting of them all.
> That is, the conventionally-minded who is convinced they are die-hard independently-minded.
I do not see as sub-type. Aggressively-conventionally minded most assuredly think of them as independent minded.
Other than that I agree with you. These type of people make statement equivalent of 'Earth revolve around the sun' in 21st century. And then their circle-jerk jumps in, claiming what a 'brave' and 'stunning' position they have taken.
I think your argument makes sense. It fits well with my experiences with "MAGAers" and "SJWs". I also think this style of politics is here to stay, as it is the dominate strategy. America has a fracturing hegemony: there is no longer a single universally shared set of basic beliefs. Because we no longer share the same basic beliefs, disagreements are now less likely to be due to logical validity and more likely due to unshared premises. This means the way of politics I think we'd all prefer, of arguing logically from shared core beliefs, will be less useful, making the alternative, arguing emotionally about premises, more effective. I think people "come[ing] across by chance doctrine which appeal to a special part of themself, be it religious, political, or social doctrine" is this effect in action.
Though, some criticisms of what you said:
1. It can depend on surroundings. A leftoid will rightly feel like an independent mind in a conservative area and a rightoid will rightly feel like an independent mind in a liberal area.
2. Your logic can misidentify skeptics as traditionalists. It is easy to misconstrue a progressively minded skeptic as a conservative because they criticize most currently popular progressive issues.
On a personal note: as a progressively minded skeptic, in my experiences with society, coworkers, friends, significant others, and family, I feel I have increasingly been lumped in as a "deplorable conservative." I have felt this cultural shift coming for many years now, when "SJWs" (I know this hits a sour note with many liberals, but I don't know how else to succinctly categorize these people) first started cropping up in the spaces I frequented:
0. The removal of Christmas celebration from my elementary school
1. Atheism+
2. My school's official hackathon group (was taken over by left leaning people who said you cannot form teams based on peoples' programming ability)
3. My school's official programming FB group banning "spicy" posts (an example being one where people were arguing failing fizzbuzz is an acceptable way to decide someone is not a programmer)
4. My school via the coed programming fraternity- it was a place full of people involved in 2 and 3
5. The wider programming community (donglegate, stallman's cancellation, linus and sarah sharp controversy, github and meritocracy, redis CoC controversy, etc)
6. Gamergate (specifically attempts to politically pressure games to alter their stories and design to suit audiences that aren't the typical customer).
7. Politics that are safely expressable at work without having a meet 'n greet with HR. Very, very far left ideas are routinely plastered at work, and political "courageous conversations" meetings expect exclusively uncourageous mainstream ideas.
8. Politics that are safely expressable with acquaintances, friends, and family without risk of being excommunicated.
9. For brevity, I exclude many others.
Thankfully, the latest batch of ideas (abolish police, abolish suburbs, abolish capital gains) have such a large impact that it has finally given me a hill worth dying on, and I feel free to non-anonymously express, with all the snark of a twitter checkmark, that these ideas blow ass. If that skepticism makes me an oppressor, then I embrace being one. I suppose I do deserve some credit for not being silent, since that would be violence.
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 rest of the Next Rights, once a few of your peers (or you) have opened up a whole new river of truth by finding the first right. (See James Watson, Ernest Lawrence, etc.)
You can see this in the evolution of practically every exciting field, whether it's subatomic physics, molecular biology, paleontology, etc.
This dynamic requires a fifth state in Graham's admirably simple 2x2 grid. We need to recognize people that can be defiant non-conformists when the moment presents itself -- and then work within the system to make the most of their second and third-order insights as the world embraces their big idea.
The concept of the brilliant, isolated, irritable genius is a mainstay of a certain kind of movie or novel. But in real life, the most effective disrupters are just as good at forming large teams that lead the charge toward the next right (once they've found their breakthrough idea) as in coming up with that breathtakingly strange new idea in the first place.
I'm unsure about your example of James Watson as a successful scientist. He was successful, yes, and was a scientist. But I don't think he was successful as a scientist. Rosalind Franklin made the key scientific insights crucial to figuring out DNA's structure. She wasn't even actually the person that took Photo 51, that was her student. She was, however, the one who presented her insights that the phosphate backbone is on the outside of the molecule, one of the most crucial insights to figuring out how DNA works since prior to that watson crick et al thought the backbone was on the inside. That goes beyond just "contributing" the photo, that's actually generating the scientific insights that unlocked the structure of the molecule before being derided as an assistant incapable of understanding her own data by watson and then dying without a nobel. In light of that, I don't see how watson can get credit as a successful scientist. Crick went on to make other contributions such as codifying the central dogma, watson not so much.
I also stopped on the assertion about the successful scientist, but instead of outright disagreeing, I took it to mean that the definition of successful scientists for pg includes mostly the starters of new paradigms, regardless of the ideas being accepted during their lifetimes or not.
By successful scientist he means someone who changes a scientific paradigm, creates a new field, or really pushes the field forwards. Incremental discoveries are not under this umbrella
> "This dynamic requires a fifth state in Graham's admirably simple 2x2 grid. We need to recognize people that can be defiant non-conformists when the moment presents itself..."
to be aggressively non-conformist, that's the critical mistake pg makes: we're dynamic, complicated creatures embedded in an infinitely complex system. who we are in a given moment is not who we are at another moment. to define ourselves as "being" one type or the other is a gross error of static categorization. we're each of them at different moments in our lives, frittering among them, and beyond them, constantly.
put succinctly: fuck labels.
that's not to say the conceptual framework isn't useful, but his static application of it is in error.
> 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 more independent thinkers. A culture that censors raises children by rewarding convention-seeking behaviour and sharply punishing non-conformance.
(Counterpoint: Did the children of circa 1920s academics become academics at a greater frequency than those of postwar academics? Anecdotally, I think so. A lot of them, as PG hypothesises, became founders. That suggests an innate quality that seeks its environment.)
This might also be content-dependent. When I was young, I oscillated between tattletelling and rampant rulebreaking, with a memorable drive to stand out from my peer group. Notably, an inflection point, to my memory and, surprisingly, to my discovery a few years ago after reading childhood notes, was when my family immigrated to America. To-day, I’m passively conformist with the law, but moderately independent when it comes to personal social, political and broader commercial activities, enjoying standing out even if it means being quirky or disliked. I don’t imagine I’d have been the same in Switzerland or in India.
Very interesting take. This reminds me of Bob Altemeyer's work. He summed up his decades of research on authoritarianism in a free ebook at https://www.theauthoritarians.org/ .
I invite everyone to read this, this is the single most important work of political science / social psychology I've ever read.
Two categories he identifies, "authoritarian" and "social dominant" map to Graham's "passively conventional" and "aggressively conventional." The latter also tends to correspond to what psychiatrists would describe as narcissist, anti-social and possibly psychopathic traits.
For example, he conducted experiments as role playing games, like a model United Nations. When he removed the few "social dominants" from the player pool, the game ran smoothly, there was peace and everyone went to Alpha Centauri or something.
But when he added a few social dominants, things went to hell quick, and nuclear war broke out. Note that social dominants / narcissists are typically at most a few percents of the population.
I'm sure many people have noticed the phenomenon in any organisation: when a narcissist gets a modicum of power, they can destroy an organisation from within.
I believe Steve Jobs was a narcissist or had some of those traits, but he did just the opposite. It's not necessarily true that narcissists are destructive. I think they are a mixed bag. Sometimes they are constructive and work within the system to improve things, even if it's ultimately to improve their own standing in the world.
> 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 or CEO implies a different kind of confirmity, namely, to the strong requirement of generating revenue (or at least investment) in the short term. Though we're all pushed to get academic funding as well, I don't think we have it as bad as either of those two roles, and that itself allows a certain diversity of thought.
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 success I mean maybe a post-doc or two followed by a reasonable shot at a tenure-track position at a decent school. This restriction is made in the same way that (I am assuming) pg is only referring to quants at decent firms, and startup founders who at least have an idea they can get off the ground. I seriously doubt that any kind of conformism at say, an ivy league institution, is because people who would have become profs there chose not to.
If you want to learn about the various types of people and how they relate to the world around them, study the French Revolution (in depth, not just a snippet). You will find every kind of person (in much more complex combinations than presented here), and how they participate/change/destroy/terrorize/etc. People today are no different we just have more technology.
While I think there might be a grain of truth here I really disagree with how he states it. He seems to be really placing higher value on the isolated genius who does great things despite society being against him. This seems to be based on a lot of pretension and dismisses people who do not think like him.
With how he defines conformity and nonconformity one could argue that the flatearther surrounded by non flatearthers could be a nonconformist. I would argue it's not conformity or lack there of that leads to effectiveness, but instead an indifference to conforming leading to a pursuit of the truth regardless of if it is mainstream or not. So I would say his quadrant system does not define the independent minded person he talks about later in the article.
I think he is in the right ballpark when it comes to pointing to the clear eyed visionary who is willing to look past the orthodox of those around them. But I think his formulation of such an idea is reductionistic. People I would view as conformist have their own worldviews and often pride themselves as nonconformists. Worldviews are a complicated thing and if we write off the majority of people as "sheep" or just part of the problem we become part of a contempt culture that can be really toxic.
Yes, flat-earthers would probably count as non-conformist. I think the point is that in order to have Galileo, you have to tolerate flat-earthers as well.
I do agree that calling most people "sheep" is uncharitable, and would add that calling aggressive conformists "stupid" is also not accurate or productive. They might be making stupid decisions, but they're not stupid people.
I honestly don't understand this perspective which seems central to a lot of pgs writing lately: "the customs protecting free inquiry have been weakened"
Can anyone explain it?
We are, right now, posting on the most expansive and weakly moderated communications platform humanity has ever had. You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with.
In what way is free inquiry meaningfully weakened? By any absolute measure it seems like it can only be the strongest it has ever been.
Graham framing his essay as such is disingenuous, at best:
And the call of the aggressively independent-minded is "Eppur si muove."
In case you had to search for this (I did)[0] It's a reference to Galileo being correct about the Earth orbiting the Sun, and famously so. The presumption of this reference is that "independent" thinkers are right - they are more often wrong. PG seems to presume, or lead the reader to presume, that these thinkers are more right... oddly the rest of the essay avoids the question of conventional wisdom being right.
This is also bad writing. The use of set phrases / quotes in a foreign language without citation is confusing for the reader, and also pedantic.
The categorization is interesting albeit deeply ungrounded in any real rigor and seems of a piece with one of his other recent essays, in which he developed a psychoanalytic theory of the various kinds of "haters" and "losers."
Further, I wish Paul Graham would try to convey his ideas with less condescension and smugness. There's a sense in which he maligns large swaths of humanity as somehow defective or worthy of shame. Certainly the term "idiots" doesn't help.
Further there's an essentialism and determinism that's sort of disturbing (labeling preschoolers as sheep is kind of messed up) and lacking in empathy.
Finally I suppose this is obvious, but I'm guessing Graham situates himself as a paragon of fierce independent-minded thinking and courage. It's rather easier to do that when you're absurdly independently wealthy. Thinking through the courageous stand countless people are taking even right now around the world, risking life and limb, just makes this feel a bit like a grievance-laden tempest in a teapot.
This is all so static. Real life is more dynamic. An aggressive rule enforcer is an easygoing independent who got mugged and an easygoing independent is an aggressive rule enforcer who went to college.
Damage done in the world comes more from failing to understand how people get influenced in their choices than from picking the wrong quadrant.
As for most attempts to classify people, it should be strongly stated that any single human would fits several quadrants depending on the subject, the phase in their life they are in, or even the mood of the day.
I read this two dimensional presentation only as device to discuss a theoretical point, and not something that could have any practicality.
In particular, I think a lot of people switch from the "sheep" quadrant and the "naughty ones" pretty freely. They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken, and ideally will get back to being "Sheep" once it doesn't make sense to be a "naughty one" anymore (i.e. rules have changed, or better, they changed the rule)
That's also a reason why I see places like startup hubs where people consciously behave in unconventional ways (= be jerks, most of the time) to feel like they're "naughty ones" shouldn't be lauded, and being indepdendent minded should be balanced with benefits to the surrounding people or society (if you break big rules, it should have a big payoff for everyone)
PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life. In other classifications it would be "lawful neutral" for instance.
Yes, this is a notable problem in all of such conversations. Classifying people based on the opinions they express is a prime example of a logical fallacy.
But it's somewhat understandable why this happens. Those in a position of power want everyone to see a convincing enough reason behind their actions so people won't be opposed to them, be more obedient and just don't dissent. So they resort to elaborate logical fallacies, portraying everyone as never changing simple minded static blobs that can be classified into categories in order to judge, ban, punish and police them. Ironic, given what the article classifies people for.
> They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken...
What the rules are is complicated by all the unwritten rules. Many people speed, but never more than 10 over the limit, and they'll even get irritated by people driving at the posted limit.
> PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life.
The problem is they'll also conform to rules that don't let others live their own life. So if there's a clique of people, the aggressive conformist might mark an outsider for ostracism, and the passive conformist will dutifully uphold that.
But "sheep" is awful. I always think of the cringey post of, "Imma sheepdog protecting the sheep from the wolves." Unspoken: ...so the shepherd can then send the lambs to slaughter.
> In particular, I think a lot of people switch from the "sheep" quadrant and the "naughty ones" pretty freely. They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken, and ideally will get back to being "Sheep" once it doesn't make sense to be a "naughty one" anymore (i.e. rules have changed, or better, they changed the rule)
Unethical life pro tip: If you are breaking the rules, at least make a case for why they don't apply to you.
"I'm only stealing to feed my family."
"This isn't an invasion, we're just annexing our own population on the other side of this border."
>PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life. In other classifications it would be "lawful neutral" for instance.
One can do society more harm being passively conformist than using mildly pejorative terms. In Paul Graham's essay, the object (the "sheep") of the critique is more dangerous than its subject (the author). I would even go on to say that it is an ethical duty to be independent-minded.
If one did not know who the author is, the essay would be criticized as shallow and sweeping to the point of being a vague excuse to treat others badly by those that only half grasp ideas anyway. Strikes me as personal writing that ought to be kept personal.
I'm on the left myself - far enough that most people I consider like-minded would scoff at being called "liberal".
And I think that, while our broad cause is both rational and just, there are way too many people who believe that it can justify things that are unjustifiable; and who are, in effect, willing to replace their morality with "revolutionary necessity".
On the subject of conformance, freedom of speech, and censorship, in particular, this essay by Orwell is getting more relevant day by day:
This troubles me a lot, especially as I don't see alternatives here and now - large-scale, systemic changes are desperately needed, but that requires a mass movement; and while it's possible to have a mass movement that is not authoritarian, the one that we do have seems to be infested by authoritarian thinking to a significant degree.
True, it's fighting against authoritarianism that is even broader in scope - and worse yet, operating from a veneer of legitimacy, and with resources of state oppression at its disposal. But if "my" side wins, it'll get that same veneer - and with the attitudes that I'm observing, I find it hard to believe that the majority will be willing to discard those powerful tools as a matter of principle, or even believe that they're truly capable of misusing them.
I don't really have good answers. Insofar as decisions have to be made today, I try to go with what I see as "less wrong" - but that still leaves a lot to be desired from an ethical perspective. And yet staying out of the fight is also an unsatisfactory cop-out; for which I could, perhaps, find convincing enough excuses for people whose judgment matters to me, but never to my own conscience.
This article is distasteful with tiny number of facts and a lot of opinions. After all, there is a fact, that he ranked human beings into levels, some higher than the others, some are trouble makers and others are the angles with no fault to be found in them, some are "sheep" and others just "naughty". I do strongly believe that societies are in need for all types of people, some are conventional and some are unorthodox.
For many years, writers of all political persuasions have divided people into the "independent-thinkers" and the "sheep". Of course, people who think like they do are the independent-thinkers and the others are the sheep.
This article follows the same very old and tired pattern, and it's a shame, because I really enjoy most of Paul Graham's essays.
Has anyone ever seen an attempt to define these terms in an objective, data-driven way? Real data on this might be quite interesting.
Since this is claimed to come down to personality types, it would make sense to look at research on personality types. There is a model of personality types that seems relate-able where people are characterized as upholder, rebel, questioner, or obliger [1]. The aggressive ones line up at least:
upholder = tattletales,
rebel = naughty ones
I don't think that equating the passive category to personality types in this model works, but it would be:
questioner = dreamy ones,
obliger = sheep
The reason being that obliger is characterized more by relationships with others (aggressive/passive) than by being conventional or independent minded.
The part of the essay that made me the most introspective was:
"
Princeton professor Robert George recently wrote:
I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it. "
[+] [-] stopachka|5 years ago|reply
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 militarizing).
Yet, as PG points out, the independent minded are good at figuring out solutions. No matter what, 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.
[+] [-] missosoup|5 years ago|reply
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 political alignment, which is a very powerful weapon to shut down discourse.
This rising culture is freedom and diversity in all things except thought. This is how totalitarian regimes form. This is what my parents dumped their entire life savings into escaping, and here I am watching it rise again.
[+] [-] PaulHoule|5 years ago|reply
He built the ultimate machine to attract conformists who want to get another badge. First the conformists will push out individualists by their sheer bulk and better ability to navigate the approval process. (It's their core competency in life!)
Y Combinator is a plant that has grown too large for its pot. Someday something is going to go wrong, there are so many people going through it that sooner or later there is going to be a scandal. Graham is not on a growth trajectory, and sooner or later decay is going to catch up with him. I don't know exactly how, but the logic of exponential growth will to discover it.
If he wants to do anything except "richmansplain" about how there's some kind of problem that he can't talk about except in abtruse code (e.g. I am clearly agonized about something, but I have to draw four quadrants to pretend that I'm thinking deeply about it rather than obscure what bothers me) because if he was able to put his ineffable thoughts into words then somebody is going to do something completely indescribable.
He won't listen but here is my advice.
Graham has accomplished as much as he can in the place he is at. If he stays where he is, he can at best tread water, at worst various problems are going to catch up with him, he's going to paint himself into a corner, the amoral conformists attracted to his organization are going to create a scandal, the u.s. becomes unable to support s.v. b ecause capital has waged an investment strike against most of it, etc.
If he leaves Y Co in the hands of people he trusts (does he trust anyone?) and spends a year or two doing something else in a different place I think he'll have something interesting to say and he
It's sad, but reading his essays feels so much like reading Peirs Anthony, it is just the same essay over and over again with very little feeling he's grown. Maybe he needs to hang out with some adults, admit that being a zillionaire doesn't make you immortal, that you're always going to be frustrated because your species is split into two genders, etc.
[+] [-] blueyes|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] so33|5 years ago|reply
If I had to choose between “cancel culture” versus militarized violence, cancel me any day.
[+] [-] newacct583|5 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] maerF0x0|5 years ago|reply
Ideally it wouldn't cost one their life, liberty or means of sustenance in the pursuit of figuring out these solutions
[+] [-] bePoliteAlways|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] notsureaboutpg|5 years ago|reply
Freedom as long as you aren't threateningly critical of America.
The journalist of the Syrian War who took an anti-American stance and was targetted by American drone strikes would prove otherwise: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/how-...
[+] [-] peisistratos|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] sinker|5 years ago|reply
People like this come across by chance doctrine which appeal to a special part of themself, be it religious, political, or social doctrine. They hardily embrace the newfound doctrine and denounce others as having fundamentally the wrong framework of thinking. They come across like-minded people and make blanket statements against their detractors and constantly reformulate the perception of their ideology to be in the right.
In one sense, they believe themselves to be highly individualistic because they go against what they perceive to be the overall grain of society. This lends them conviction.
But in reality, their beliefs are not actually contrarian or minority beliefs, and these people would never had nurtured these beliefs or had the courage to actually publicly express them without the implicit support of some large chunk of society.
I believe this to be the reality today. So many people are deluded in thinking they are the small, under-represented, minority, oppressed group when they actually function as the oppressors to people who are sincerely independently-minded.
And when one who is independently-minded sees another who is deluded they are independently-minded, but in reality is aggressively-conventional, we cannot help but notice the hypocrisy.
[+] [-] eindiran|5 years ago|reply
> I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery, and worked tirelessly against it.
Most people, myself included, like to believe that they are independently-minded. Given that most people aren't independently-minded, most people are wrong.
[+] [-] uniqueid|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BoiledCabbage|5 years ago|reply
> I believe this to be the reality today. So many people are deluded in thinking they are the small, under-represented, minority, oppressed group when they actually function as the oppressors to people who are sincerely independently-minded.
This right here is the fundamental undercurrent of what's happening is society.
One of the topics that PG mentions is heresy. The topic of discussing things that a group feels shouldn't be discussed. I wish he went into more detail about it, because if you do it flushes out some interesting ideas.
Heresy exists in two important directions. Heresy against people in power, and heresy against people without power. Upwards heresy, and downwards heresy.
Upwards heresy usually is quashed, ignored or mocked. People without power performing heresy are "dealt with" by those with power. Either they are made to pay an immediate cost, or their view/opinion is not allowed to make it into the collective mainstream conversation. It gets labeled as wrong, inappropriate or simply dismissed. Most of the time you don't even hear about it because those without power have little recourse to elevate the visibility of the retaliatory actions. People with power define what heresy is - and it's defined to be the things they object to.
Downward heresy (people in power performing it) is usually entirely invisible. The people without power who are the "targets" of it have no relative power to respond to it. They don't have enough sway in the system to object to it, to call it out. If they did, they would face large repercussions by those in power that committed it. Because people with power usually can dictate what is acceptable discourse, downward heresy is usually deemed acceptable. As well, they use the term heresy to effect more power. To limit what groups can and can't do. Imagine the church using the term heresy to limit what followers can do to avoid competition religions, or to justify wars by accusing other groups of heresy.
Where things become interesting is where people without relative power gain a bit to the point they are able to call a subset of things committed by those in power as heresy. They can call out downard heresy. Here is where things blow up. The group accustomed to defining what is acceptable and not, no longer fully controls that, but they still have enough power, or influence to raise a storm when it happens. They will immediately turn to using any any all methods they have to shout how unfair it is that they can't think these thoughts, or utter these phrases. While they make thing this, of course this isn't truly the case. They enforce heresy rules all the time, but noone questions it when they do it - it just accepted as a normal part of society. The problem is that a group they deem without power, or with lesser power is holding influence over them. And that is what they can't stand. This is the group in power claiming to be oppressed. This is the majority claiming to not be. This is what causes friction in society, as it is a group with power revolting at the idea that a group with less power can affect them.
A Christian in the US is not under-represented (compared to non-Christians). And yet I hear so much of this claim recently. A man in this country, is not oppressed (in comparison to women). A heterosexual isn't oppressed. I'm a member of multiple groups above, and yet know this to be true.
Those groups (and others) can still face extreme difficulties. And live lives waaaay worse than members of other groups - but the idea that they are a under-represented oppressed group is flat out wrong.
The friction you hear is that these are groups with power, don't really don't like the fact that members of other groups in these same dimensions have some amount of power to now call out things that aren't ok. In general these dominant power groups have never had anyone other group have any influence over what they can and can't do, while they have help enormous amounts of power over what the other groups in these dimensions are able to do and the consequences they are subject to. As the saying goes, if you're always used to being over someone, being equal feels unfair.
The most notable part, is that the only type of heresy that PG writes about is the third of these. The least interesting of them all.
[+] [-] geodel|5 years ago|reply
I do not see as sub-type. Aggressively-conventionally minded most assuredly think of them as independent minded.
Other than that I agree with you. These type of people make statement equivalent of 'Earth revolve around the sun' in 21st century. And then their circle-jerk jumps in, claiming what a 'brave' and 'stunning' position they have taken.
[+] [-] robzhu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bendbro|5 years ago|reply
Though, some criticisms of what you said:
1. It can depend on surroundings. A leftoid will rightly feel like an independent mind in a conservative area and a rightoid will rightly feel like an independent mind in a liberal area.
2. Your logic can misidentify skeptics as traditionalists. It is easy to misconstrue a progressively minded skeptic as a conservative because they criticize most currently popular progressive issues.
On a personal note: as a progressively minded skeptic, in my experiences with society, coworkers, friends, significant others, and family, I feel I have increasingly been lumped in as a "deplorable conservative." I have felt this cultural shift coming for many years now, when "SJWs" (I know this hits a sour note with many liberals, but I don't know how else to succinctly categorize these people) first started cropping up in the spaces I frequented:
0. The removal of Christmas celebration from my elementary school
1. Atheism+
2. My school's official hackathon group (was taken over by left leaning people who said you cannot form teams based on peoples' programming ability)
3. My school's official programming FB group banning "spicy" posts (an example being one where people were arguing failing fizzbuzz is an acceptable way to decide someone is not a programmer)
4. My school via the coed programming fraternity- it was a place full of people involved in 2 and 3
5. The wider programming community (donglegate, stallman's cancellation, linus and sarah sharp controversy, github and meritocracy, redis CoC controversy, etc)
6. Gamergate (specifically attempts to politically pressure games to alter their stories and design to suit audiences that aren't the typical customer).
7. Politics that are safely expressable at work without having a meet 'n greet with HR. Very, very far left ideas are routinely plastered at work, and political "courageous conversations" meetings expect exclusively uncourageous mainstream ideas.
8. Politics that are safely expressable with acquaintances, friends, and family without risk of being excommunicated.
9. For brevity, I exclude many others.
Thankfully, the latest batch of ideas (abolish police, abolish suburbs, abolish capital gains) have such a large impact that it has finally given me a hill worth dying on, and I feel free to non-anonymously express, with all the snark of a twitter checkmark, that these ideas blow ass. If that skepticism makes me an oppressor, then I embrace being one. I suppose I do deserve some credit for not being silent, since that would be violence.
[+] [-] GCA10|5 years ago|reply
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 rest of the Next Rights, once a few of your peers (or you) have opened up a whole new river of truth by finding the first right. (See James Watson, Ernest Lawrence, etc.)
You can see this in the evolution of practically every exciting field, whether it's subatomic physics, molecular biology, paleontology, etc.
This dynamic requires a fifth state in Graham's admirably simple 2x2 grid. We need to recognize people that can be defiant non-conformists when the moment presents itself -- and then work within the system to make the most of their second and third-order insights as the world embraces their big idea.
The concept of the brilliant, isolated, irritable genius is a mainstay of a certain kind of movie or novel. But in real life, the most effective disrupters are just as good at forming large teams that lead the charge toward the next right (once they've found their breakthrough idea) as in coming up with that breathtakingly strange new idea in the first place.
[+] [-] vikramkr|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reginaldo|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logicslave|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] clairity|5 years ago|reply
to be aggressively non-conformist, that's the critical mistake pg makes: we're dynamic, complicated creatures embedded in an infinitely complex system. who we are in a given moment is not who we are at another moment. to define ourselves as "being" one type or the other is a gross error of static categorization. we're each of them at different moments in our lives, frittering among them, and beyond them, constantly.
put succinctly: fuck labels.
that's not to say the conceptual framework isn't useful, but his static application of it is in error.
[+] [-] JumpCrisscross|5 years ago|reply
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 more independent thinkers. A culture that censors raises children by rewarding convention-seeking behaviour and sharply punishing non-conformance.
(Counterpoint: Did the children of circa 1920s academics become academics at a greater frequency than those of postwar academics? Anecdotally, I think so. A lot of them, as PG hypothesises, became founders. That suggests an innate quality that seeks its environment.)
This might also be content-dependent. When I was young, I oscillated between tattletelling and rampant rulebreaking, with a memorable drive to stand out from my peer group. Notably, an inflection point, to my memory and, surprisingly, to my discovery a few years ago after reading childhood notes, was when my family immigrated to America. To-day, I’m passively conformist with the law, but moderately independent when it comes to personal social, political and broader commercial activities, enjoying standing out even if it means being quirky or disliked. I don’t imagine I’d have been the same in Switzerland or in India.
[+] [-] himinlomax|5 years ago|reply
I invite everyone to read this, this is the single most important work of political science / social psychology I've ever read.
Two categories he identifies, "authoritarian" and "social dominant" map to Graham's "passively conventional" and "aggressively conventional." The latter also tends to correspond to what psychiatrists would describe as narcissist, anti-social and possibly psychopathic traits.
For example, he conducted experiments as role playing games, like a model United Nations. When he removed the few "social dominants" from the player pool, the game ran smoothly, there was peace and everyone went to Alpha Centauri or something.
But when he added a few social dominants, things went to hell quick, and nuclear war broke out. Note that social dominants / narcissists are typically at most a few percents of the population.
I'm sure many people have noticed the phenomenon in any organisation: when a narcissist gets a modicum of power, they can destroy an organisation from within.
[+] [-] chrisco255|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sideshowb|5 years ago|reply
In defence of my chosen place in a university: being a quant or CEO implies a different kind of confirmity, namely, to the strong requirement of generating revenue (or at least investment) in the short term. Though we're all pushed to get academic funding as well, I don't think we have it as bad as either of those two roles, and that itself allows a certain diversity of thought.
[+] [-] kaymanb|5 years ago|reply
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 success I mean maybe a post-doc or two followed by a reasonable shot at a tenure-track position at a decent school. This restriction is made in the same way that (I am assuming) pg is only referring to quants at decent firms, and startup founders who at least have an idea they can get off the ground. I seriously doubt that any kind of conformism at say, an ivy league institution, is because people who would have become profs there chose not to.
[+] [-] coldcode|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frasermince|5 years ago|reply
With how he defines conformity and nonconformity one could argue that the flatearther surrounded by non flatearthers could be a nonconformist. I would argue it's not conformity or lack there of that leads to effectiveness, but instead an indifference to conforming leading to a pursuit of the truth regardless of if it is mainstream or not. So I would say his quadrant system does not define the independent minded person he talks about later in the article.
I think he is in the right ballpark when it comes to pointing to the clear eyed visionary who is willing to look past the orthodox of those around them. But I think his formulation of such an idea is reductionistic. People I would view as conformist have their own worldviews and often pride themselves as nonconformists. Worldviews are a complicated thing and if we write off the majority of people as "sheep" or just part of the problem we become part of a contempt culture that can be really toxic.
[+] [-] GavinB|5 years ago|reply
I do agree that calling most people "sheep" is uncharitable, and would add that calling aggressive conformists "stupid" is also not accurate or productive. They might be making stupid decisions, but they're not stupid people.
[+] [-] __alexs|5 years ago|reply
Can anyone explain it?
We are, right now, posting on the most expansive and weakly moderated communications platform humanity has ever had. You can find almost anyone opinion imaginable out there with a brief Google search and forums on which to argue every side of it with.
In what way is free inquiry meaningfully weakened? By any absolute measure it seems like it can only be the strongest it has ever been.
[+] [-] nappy|5 years ago|reply
This is also bad writing. The use of set phrases / quotes in a foreign language without citation is confusing for the reader, and also pedantic.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_yet_it_moves
[+] [-] dataisfun|5 years ago|reply
Further, I wish Paul Graham would try to convey his ideas with less condescension and smugness. There's a sense in which he maligns large swaths of humanity as somehow defective or worthy of shame. Certainly the term "idiots" doesn't help.
Further there's an essentialism and determinism that's sort of disturbing (labeling preschoolers as sheep is kind of messed up) and lacking in empathy.
Finally I suppose this is obvious, but I'm guessing Graham situates himself as a paragon of fierce independent-minded thinking and courage. It's rather easier to do that when you're absurdly independently wealthy. Thinking through the courageous stand countless people are taking even right now around the world, risking life and limb, just makes this feel a bit like a grievance-laden tempest in a teapot.
[+] [-] m0llusk|5 years ago|reply
Damage done in the world comes more from failing to understand how people get influenced in their choices than from picking the wrong quadrant.
[+] [-] hrktb|5 years ago|reply
I read this two dimensional presentation only as device to discuss a theoretical point, and not something that could have any practicality.
In particular, I think a lot of people switch from the "sheep" quadrant and the "naughty ones" pretty freely. They'll want to obey rules until they hit one that they feel doesnt' make sense and/or needs to be broken, and ideally will get back to being "Sheep" once it doesn't make sense to be a "naughty one" anymore (i.e. rules have changed, or better, they changed the rule)
That's also a reason why I see places like startup hubs where people consciously behave in unconventional ways (= be jerks, most of the time) to feel like they're "naughty ones" shouldn't be lauded, and being indepdendent minded should be balanced with benefits to the surrounding people or society (if you break big rules, it should have a big payoff for everyone)
PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life. In other classifications it would be "lawful neutral" for instance.
[+] [-] zzz61831|5 years ago|reply
But it's somewhat understandable why this happens. Those in a position of power want everyone to see a convincing enough reason behind their actions so people won't be opposed to them, be more obedient and just don't dissent. So they resort to elaborate logical fallacies, portraying everyone as never changing simple minded static blobs that can be classified into categories in order to judge, ban, punish and police them. Ironic, given what the article classifies people for.
[+] [-] ben509|5 years ago|reply
What the rules are is complicated by all the unwritten rules. Many people speed, but never more than 10 over the limit, and they'll even get irritated by people driving at the posted limit.
> PS: I find wording it as "sheep" to be unneedingly pejorative towards people who just don't break the rules and let others live their own life.
The problem is they'll also conform to rules that don't let others live their own life. So if there's a clique of people, the aggressive conformist might mark an outsider for ostracism, and the passive conformist will dutifully uphold that.
But "sheep" is awful. I always think of the cringey post of, "Imma sheepdog protecting the sheep from the wolves." Unspoken: ...so the shepherd can then send the lambs to slaughter.
[+] [-] Archit3ch|5 years ago|reply
Unethical life pro tip: If you are breaking the rules, at least make a case for why they don't apply to you.
"I'm only stealing to feed my family."
"This isn't an invasion, we're just annexing our own population on the other side of this border."
[+] [-] austincheney|5 years ago|reply
Its not related to such subjectivity as the subjectivity is itself a likely form of conformity.
[+] [-] Funes-|5 years ago|reply
One can do society more harm being passively conformist than using mildly pejorative terms. In Paul Graham's essay, the object (the "sheep") of the critique is more dangerous than its subject (the author). I would even go on to say that it is an ethical duty to be independent-minded.
[+] [-] bsenftner|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] int_19h|5 years ago|reply
And I think that, while our broad cause is both rational and just, there are way too many people who believe that it can justify things that are unjustifiable; and who are, in effect, willing to replace their morality with "revolutionary necessity".
On the subject of conformance, freedom of speech, and censorship, in particular, this essay by Orwell is getting more relevant day by day:
https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-foundation/orwel...
This troubles me a lot, especially as I don't see alternatives here and now - large-scale, systemic changes are desperately needed, but that requires a mass movement; and while it's possible to have a mass movement that is not authoritarian, the one that we do have seems to be infested by authoritarian thinking to a significant degree.
True, it's fighting against authoritarianism that is even broader in scope - and worse yet, operating from a veneer of legitimacy, and with resources of state oppression at its disposal. But if "my" side wins, it'll get that same veneer - and with the attitudes that I'm observing, I find it hard to believe that the majority will be willing to discard those powerful tools as a matter of principle, or even believe that they're truly capable of misusing them.
I don't really have good answers. Insofar as decisions have to be made today, I try to go with what I see as "less wrong" - but that still leaves a lot to be desired from an ethical perspective. And yet staying out of the fight is also an unsatisfactory cop-out; for which I could, perhaps, find convincing enough excuses for people whose judgment matters to me, but never to my own conscience.
[+] [-] samuelbeniamin|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] timoth3y|5 years ago|reply
This article follows the same very old and tired pattern, and it's a shame, because I really enjoy most of Paul Graham's essays.
Has anyone ever seen an attempt to define these terms in an objective, data-driven way? Real data on this might be quite interesting.
[+] [-] gregwebs|5 years ago|reply
upholder = tattletales, rebel = naughty ones
I don't think that equating the passive category to personality types in this model works, but it would be:
questioner = dreamy ones, obliger = sheep
The reason being that obliger is characterized more by relationships with others (aggressive/passive) than by being conventional or independent minded.
[1] https://psychcentral.com/blog/4-personality-types-the-uphold...
[+] [-] asdfman123|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] oldsklgdfth|5 years ago|reply
" Princeton professor Robert George recently wrote:
I had to stop and ask myself that question.