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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 ev

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.
    - kristianc 6y ago
      > "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. But then where you place ‘woke’ in PG’s quadrant in itself is open to debate. Are trans rights activists ‘aggressively conventional’ for supporting the right to self-identify (in the UK at least a broadly popular position), or are they bold and independent minded for taking on more contentious positions, such as using the bathrooms of their identified gender without having undergone reassignment or take place in the sports of their chosen gender? And if you can say someone can be both ‘aggressively conventional’ and ‘bold and independent’ where does that leave the tidy classification of the quadrant?
      - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        I didn't say that someone can be "aggressively conventional" and "bold and independent". I said that the same position can be both at different times and places. You seem to be trying to make PG's scheme a classification of positions, and it's not. It's a classification of peoples' behavior. The result is that most of your criticism is directed at something that is not actually PG's position.

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.
  - kristianc 6y ago
    > "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. But then where you place ‘woke’ in PG’s quadrant in itself is open to debate. Are trans rights activists ‘aggressively conventional’ for supporting the right to self-identify (in the UK at least a broadly popular position), or are they bold and independent minded for taking on more contentious positions, such as using the bathrooms of their identified gender without having undergone reassignment or take place in the sports of their chosen gender? And if you can say someone can be both ‘aggressively conventional’ and ‘bold and independent’ where does that leave the tidy classification of the quadrant?
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      I didn't say that someone can be "aggressively conventional" and "bold and independent". I said that the same position can be both at different times and places. You seem to be trying to make PG's scheme a classification of positions, and it's not. It's a classification of peoples' behavior. The result is that most of your criticism is directed at something that is not actually PG's position.