Comment by adnzzzzZ | Hacker News Reader

Comment by adnzzzzZ | Hacker News Reader

The distinction between independent-mindedness and conventional-mindedness is captured more correctly I think by a trait called politeness as defined here https://www.researchgate.net/publication/5863998_Between_Fac... Independent-mindness would be similar to low politeness (coupled with high openness, but I'll ignore that for now), and those people would be more likely to be like this than not:

* Make enemies.

* Oppose authority.

* Believe that I am better than others.

* Seek danger.

* Put people under pressure.

* Try to outdo others.

* Believe only in myself.

* Impose my will on others.

* Love a good fight.

* Seek conflict.

* Think too highly of myself.

* Tell tall stories about myself.

* Play tricks on others.

* Enjoy crude jokes.

* [Comment loudly about others.]

* [Enjoy being reckless.]

* [Do dangerous things.]

You get the point. In my opinion, you don't really get to be independent-minded without the negatives that come with it. For instance, most conspiracy theorists are highly independent-minded people. They definitely reject authority, and they're highly curious and contrarian about established narratives.

This recent small debate I found on Twitter is a good illustrative example of it. https://twitter.com/ModeledBehavior/status/13280235538249932... The account in question (https://twitter.com/toad_spotted) was someone who got the pandemic right earlier than most people, so conventional-minded people followed it because it was a good source of information about the virus overall. But now that another situation has come up where independent-mindedness can also show itself to be useful (and potentially right), conventional-minded people will dislike it, just like they disliked it when the outcome of the virus wasn't yet known.

I felt like mentioning this because I feel like there's a lack of appreciation for how exactly the negative aspects of independent-mindedness manifest themselves in real life, and without that appreciation for the negatives of it I think it's easy to misjudge how independent-minded someone actually is and to also misjudge people who are more independent-minded than you because they seem more difficult to get along with.

> For instance, most conspiracy theorists are highly independent-minded people.

I agree with Graham's take that conspiracy minded people are not independent minded at all. They just have a different group whose authority they accept without question.

Very few conspiracy minded people come up with the conspiracies they believe in entirely on their own, or deeply investigate to find out if the conspiracy is true. They just latch on to a conspiracy someone else articulated and accept it unquestioningly.

We just disagree then. In my view, most conspiracy theorists actually deeply investigate if the conspiracy is true, they just don't have the tools, knowledge or intelligence necessary to rebuke the arguments themselves so they believe the conspiracy is true. This is more work than most people do when faced with any kind of claim from an authoritative source.

The main reason some conspiracies get more "believers" than others, in my opinion, is because they're contrarian signals, so they'll attract contrarian people, and like with anything, most people will only explore the surface level stuff because that's enough for their contrarian itches.

The twitter example seems more like those Nobel prize winners that later reconvert to crackpots.

I definitely agree that conspiracy theorists reject authority and are contrarian, but most don't strike me as curious except for a superficial level.

That said, I would agree with the general idea that independent minded people can be less approachable, mainly due to the fact that they do not "need" anyone and people like to feel useful.

As for the list of things those people may or may not enjoy, the sheer amount of things polled and the small sample size give me doubts.

>The twitter example seems more like those Nobel prize winners that later reconvert to crackpots.

That's the point. They were always "crackpots". You need to be a crackpot to generate ideas that people aren't generating, otherwise everyone would generate them. This means you'll generate wrong ideas, but it also means you'll generate right ideas that people think are wrong.

>I definitely agree that conspiracy theorists reject authority and are contrarian, but most don't strike me as curious except for a superficial level.

They are definitely more curious than most people, as evidenced by the fact that they were attracted to the conspiracy theory in the first place. It's also not uncommon for an intelligent conspiracy theorist to be able to outargue a conventional person on a subject they care about, i.e. the Earth being flat or not.

>As for the list of things those people may or may not enjoy, the sheer amount of things polled and the small sample size give me doubts.

I think this field is pretty well established and this paper in particular is well cited, so among peers it doesn't seem to be contentious.

I think it's quite tragic that you got downvoted in a thread about independent thinking. Seriously people, you might disagree with his point, but it's very independent, has a lot of substance compared to all other comments, provides links.

Probably was to independent for some?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com