Conventional-minded people don't like to think of themselves as conventional-minded. And in any case, it genuinely feels to them as if they make up their own mi

Conventional-minded people don't like to think of themselves as conventional-minded. And in any case, it genuinely feels to them as if they make up their own minds about everything. It's just a coincidence that their beliefs are identical to their peers'. I'm not sure about this. I think people are aware of what is conventional, and that's why they gravitate towards it. It's a risk-mitigation strategy, or in the case of curiosity, the explore-exploit trade-off at work. Life presents you with a bewildering array of options. It greatly helps to establish what the conventional choice is. It will generally be the safe option, a path well-trodden. You can try to reverse-engineer why it became the conventional choice, gain an appreciation of its advantages, maybe tweak things to find a slightly more optimal solution for your personal circumstance... but sticking with convention qua convention is generally justified. People don't 'accidentally' make the same choices as most others, they deliberately identify what is conventional and follow that path. Go to university, buy a house with a mortgage, get a car on PCP, marry before having children, etc etc Likewise for a small child there is no downside to curiosity, only upside. As an adult, there is an awareness that you need to earn your daily bread, before all else. Working with people who seem to just follow flights of fancy, risking their livelihood, can be infuriating. And then there is the whole meta-question of conventional thoughts versus conventional statements. If you believe something that is widely disbelieved, and you speak up, you're sticking your neck out. When I see people do this I tend to get the impression they have not really calibrated their bet on being right against the reputational risk they are assuming.