9 ms·

This is so meandering and incoherent that it's hard to comment on, but the idea that silicon valley and finance types are "independent-minded" is downright laug

by smhost 6y ago

This is so meandering and incoherent that it's hard to comment on, but the idea that silicon valley and finance types are "independent-minded" is downright laughable. It's pretty clear that those types are in lock-step with each other ideologically, maybe broadly split between east-coast and west-coast aesthetically. This categorization is such nonsense. People in the hard sciences don't neatly fall into a type, and in fact is almost the opposite. In physics and math (maybe especially in math and physics), people are split right down the middle between conventional and independent. pg just doesn't seem to understand the internal politics of the sciences.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
vgfalk 6y ago
I do not agree that the essay is incoherent, the general line of thought is very clear: Independently of left or right, conformists of the passive, aggressive, or passive aggressive variety can ruin societies and free thinking. Conformists can also easily switch sides. Indeed the insertion of Silicon Valley was a bit unnecessary. They are ruthless capitalists that currently pretend to be socialist for profit and hiring motives as well as suppressing weak software developers by confusing them with new ideologies every week.
- avs733 6y ago
  i.e., aggressive-conformists masquerading as aggressive independent thinkers
kristianc 6y ago
Right - and there’s the tacit assumption flowing throughout is that the ‘independent thinkers’ have only good things to say, and that societal norms have not evolved for any good reason. The state, particularly the welfare state, is partly a recognition that together we can achieve a level of protection for each other that we cannot achieve independently. And if the independent thinkers don’t much feel like writing open source software, writing political treatises or contributing to Wikipedia articles and instead feel like spreading anti-vaccine conspiracy theories online, then what? Like most business quadrants of this type, it gets you to agree to its typology of the world and the rest flows naturally from there. But the typology usually can be called pretty easily into question.
- NoodleIncident 6y ago
  "people agreed on things in the past that we don't agree with today" - arguably true, but historians get mad sometimes depending on the specifics, they might have a point "therefore anything we agree on today is 100% arbitrary BS and only my own ideas matter" - ...what? Are you ok?
- pjscott 6y ago
  Regarding your first paragraph, consider these two claims: 1. Progress comes from people who are willing to ignore conventional wisdom and social norms. 2. The conventional wisdom is mostly wise, and social norms evolved in ways that are mostly good. These claims don't conflict. It's entirely possible for independent thinkers to be mostly wrong, much wronger than the mainstream, and to be essential for progress. Most changes may not be improvements, but every improvement is still a change.
  - kristianc 6y ago
    > These claims don't conflict. It's entirely possible for independent thinkers to be mostly wrong, much wronger than the mainstream, and to be essential for progress. Most changes may not be improvements, but every improvement is still a change. Which is precisely why this framework is too reductive to be of any real explanatory value. At some point, someone has to make the decision about whether someone’s motivation for wanting to be ‘aggressively conventional’ (PG introduces a new term here - presumably ‘woke’ is too inflammatory) is well-founded, or if they’re holding back necessary progress. PG seems to fancy himself as that arbiter, but I’m not convinced the argument is being made in good faith.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      > ‘aggressively conventional’ (PG introduces a new term here - presumably ‘woke’ is too inflammatory) "Woke" is too limited. It may be the current form of "aggressively conventional", but there were others before it, there will be others after it, and there are others than it right now. Also, "woke" was once aggressively independent (probably before the term "woke" was used). Now it's aggressively conventional - though it may be a parody of what the independents meant.
avs733 6y ago
Excessive dimension reduction is a scourge in social science, and in societal commentary by just about everyone. So, yes - I agree with your point entirely, and I think it can be made much more concrete honestly by adding another dimension: The why of independence Notably, that is the harder one to create a surface level observation of. But take his favored quadrant: "And the kids in the upper right quadrant, the aggressively independent-minded, are the naughty ones. When they see a rule, their first impulse is to question it. Merely being told what to do makes them inclined to do the opposite." Is it merely being told what to do causes them to question something? So its the rule demands questioning of it? or is what he is really looking for that they question the reasoning and demand valid reasoning? One is just contrarian, one is self aware. Some people start with contrarianism as a poorly articulated path to demanding valid reasoning...At times Elon Musk sounds like a contrarian, at times he sounds like a reasoned risk taker, I'm not investing in that. In the end, Paul sounds a bit like he's trying to take a roundabout way to make fun of the high school jocks...
- mcguire 6y ago
  Do the naughty ones question rules, or do they just break them?
- chillacy 6y ago
  > I think that you'll find all four types in most societies, and that which quadrant people fall into depends more on their own personality than the beliefs prevalent in their society. Personality is a real topic of psychology research, the current model is a five-factor model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits But the distributions are not bi-modal, so in reality most people are near the center of this quadrant with (I assume normally distributed) outliers.

by smhost 6y ago

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

vgfalk 6y ago

I do not agree that the essay is incoherent, the general line of thought is very clear: Independently of left or right, conformists of the passive, aggressive, or passive aggressive variety can ruin societies and free thinking. Conformists can also easily switch sides. Indeed the insertion of Silicon Valley was a bit unnecessary. They are ruthless capitalists that currently pretend to be socialist for profit and hiring motives as well as suppressing weak software developers by confusing them with new ideologies every week.

avs733 6y ago
i.e., aggressive-conformists masquerading as aggressive independent thinkers

kristianc 6y ago

Right - and there’s the tacit assumption flowing throughout is that the ‘independent thinkers’ have only good things to say, and that societal norms have not evolved for any good reason. The state, particularly the welfare state, is partly a recognition that together we can achieve a level of protection for each other that we cannot achieve independently. And if the independent thinkers don’t much feel like writing open source software, writing political treatises or contributing to Wikipedia articles and instead feel like spreading anti-vaccine conspiracy theories online, then what? Like most business quadrants of this type, it gets you to agree to its typology of the world and the rest flows naturally from there. But the typology usually can be called pretty easily into question.

NoodleIncident 6y ago
"people agreed on things in the past that we don't agree with today" - arguably true, but historians get mad sometimes depending on the specifics, they might have a point "therefore anything we agree on today is 100% arbitrary BS and only my own ideas matter" - ...what? Are you ok?
pjscott 6y ago
Regarding your first paragraph, consider these two claims: 1. Progress comes from people who are willing to ignore conventional wisdom and social norms. 2. The conventional wisdom is mostly wise, and social norms evolved in ways that are mostly good. These claims don't conflict. It's entirely possible for independent thinkers to be mostly wrong, much wronger than the mainstream, and to be essential for progress. Most changes may not be improvements, but every improvement is still a change.
- kristianc 6y ago
  > These claims don't conflict. It's entirely possible for independent thinkers to be mostly wrong, much wronger than the mainstream, and to be essential for progress. Most changes may not be improvements, but every improvement is still a change. Which is precisely why this framework is too reductive to be of any real explanatory value. At some point, someone has to make the decision about whether someone’s motivation for wanting to be ‘aggressively conventional’ (PG introduces a new term here - presumably ‘woke’ is too inflammatory) is well-founded, or if they’re holding back necessary progress. PG seems to fancy himself as that arbiter, but I’m not convinced the argument is being made in good faith.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    > ‘aggressively conventional’ (PG introduces a new term here - presumably ‘woke’ is too inflammatory) "Woke" is too limited. It may be the current form of "aggressively conventional", but there were others before it, there will be others after it, and there are others than it right now. Also, "woke" was once aggressively independent (probably before the term "woke" was used). Now it's aggressively conventional - though it may be a parody of what the independents meant.

avs733 6y ago

Excessive dimension reduction is a scourge in social science, and in societal commentary by just about everyone. So, yes - I agree with your point entirely, and I think it can be made much more concrete honestly by adding another dimension: The why of independence Notably, that is the harder one to create a surface level observation of. But take his favored quadrant: "And the kids in the upper right quadrant, the aggressively independent-minded, are the naughty ones. When they see a rule, their first impulse is to question it. Merely being told what to do makes them inclined to do the opposite." Is it merely being told what to do causes them to question something? So its the rule demands questioning of it? or is what he is really looking for that they question the reasoning and demand valid reasoning? One is just contrarian, one is self aware. Some people start with contrarianism as a poorly articulated path to demanding valid reasoning...At times Elon Musk sounds like a contrarian, at times he sounds like a reasoned risk taker, I'm not investing in that. In the end, Paul sounds a bit like he's trying to take a roundabout way to make fun of the high school jocks...

mcguire 6y ago
Do the naughty ones question rules, or do they just break them?
chillacy 6y ago
> I think that you'll find all four types in most societies, and that which quadrant people fall into depends more on their own personality than the beliefs prevalent in their society. Personality is a real topic of psychology research, the current model is a five-factor model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits But the distributions are not bi-modal, so in reality most people are near the center of this quadrant with (I assume normally distributed) outliers.