While conformity has been normalized, and regular operations depend upon it, people within an organization who are autonomous can identify opportunities being missed, and either succeed in promoting them, or depart. In my experience people such capabilities are valued within competitive businesses that depend upon satisfied customers. However, in bureaucratic organizations like government and non-profits it is a different story. The "silicon valley" story is one of creative people who couldn't sell their new idea within their organization who then left to launch it. Years ago somebody published a family tree showing how many companies emerged from this process.
You're making a different point than the one you say you're making.
Everyone craves autonomy, starting at around age two. They also crave acceptance. This isn't news to anyone.
People who take more risks are overrepresented both in terms of successes and failures. The curiosity and interest in experimentation and tolerance for risk is correlated with a tendency towards autonomy, but it is not caused by that.
Don't worry about my self esteem. But I don't have a graduate degree, I've never had an important job, I'm a stay-at-home mother, and I'm extremely autonomous by nature.
Perhaps this is oversimplification, but I think of this as the degree to which someone is risk-adverse. People who emigrated to this country during 17th-18th century were not risk-adverse. Children seeking safe spaces on a university campus to avoid microaggressions are risk-adverse. One type is indeed autonomous and independent, the other is most definitely, as you put it, domesticated.
My father was an engineer, and we moved to Santa Clara County for his job before I started school. I grew up when the area was transitioning from fruit orchards to what eventually came to be known as Silicon Valley. One of my high school friends briefly worked in one of the early chip fabrication facilities after graduating from high school, while my first summer job in college was on the production line of a local cannery. I think you might be able to argue that Santa Clara County in those early days was a bit like a frontier relative to more established parts of the county. I know that Santa Clara County being less urbanized than the area from which we moved was an attraction for my father. The cliche is that engineers tend to be social misfits and outliers to begin with ('somewhere on the spectrum'), and it is possible that those who chose to move there self-selected for the characteristics you are talking about, creating an environment that was relatively congenial for a few of the misfits who grew up there. My impression is this is no longer the case, and that 'corporate conformity has been normalized,' as you put it (perhaps more accurately, 'corporate conformity to wokeism has been normalized'), but why and how that happened is a separate topic.
What about the tech entrepreneurs and early internet pioneers? I see a lot of talk about how quickly the internet seemed to have been tamed from its early more "open" days in the 90's and early 00's. Not sure what that all means. Perhaps even where there are autonomy seekers, the forces of conformity are overwhelming. But are some of the most successful tech entrepreneurs to blame? Their companies are the ones often blamed for tech/internet restrictions and conformity. Autonomy for me, but not for thee?
Yes, in many explicit, obvious (to some) ways we select for conformity. One example is trying to teach in a highly structured, controlled environment where kids have to stay in their seats and listen. But having said that, compared to kids in China who learn far more by rote memorization, American kids finish high school (and college?) far more creative and with better problem solving skills.
In the end, what you say about today versus earlier America is true but only in a relative way. And I'd argue US still has at least it's fair share of nonconformists, entrepreneurs, innovators, etc. even if we still wish there were more of them and we did a better job of nurturing in that direction.
When animals are domesticated, the physical differences between male and female often diminish due to lack of evolutionary competition in the wild. If humans are becoming more domesticated, are we seeing the same thing?
I fear most college grads who grinded thru their studies are looking for the lowest risk path into the upper middle class or lower upper class, 70-95 income percentiles. Low risk means not starting up a company.
I’d guess especially those from broken homes would be a bit more risk averse, while also having far less family support for starting something up. Not sure there is data about the start up founders’ families.
This made me think of Robin Hanson's status-drunk hypothesis, that we use absolute wealth to judge relative status, believe we have high relative status, and seek out further status. But he indicates that higher status animals tend to be leaders and therefore peacemakers. Recueil's data seems at tension with this. I wonder if this tension is resolvable, or if they have incompatible views.
While conformity has been normalized, and regular operations depend upon it, people within an organization who are autonomous can identify opportunities being missed, and either succeed in promoting them, or depart. In my experience people such capabilities are valued within competitive businesses that depend upon satisfied customers. However, in bureaucratic organizations like government and non-profits it is a different story. The "silicon valley" story is one of creative people who couldn't sell their new idea within their organization who then left to launch it. Years ago somebody published a family tree showing how many companies emerged from this process.
You're making a different point than the one you say you're making.
Everyone craves autonomy, starting at around age two. They also crave acceptance. This isn't news to anyone.
People who take more risks are overrepresented both in terms of successes and failures. The curiosity and interest in experimentation and tolerance for risk is correlated with a tendency towards autonomy, but it is not caused by that.
Don't worry about my self esteem. But I don't have a graduate degree, I've never had an important job, I'm a stay-at-home mother, and I'm extremely autonomous by nature.
Perhaps this is oversimplification, but I think of this as the degree to which someone is risk-adverse. People who emigrated to this country during 17th-18th century were not risk-adverse. Children seeking safe spaces on a university campus to avoid microaggressions are risk-adverse. One type is indeed autonomous and independent, the other is most definitely, as you put it, domesticated.
My father was an engineer, and we moved to Santa Clara County for his job before I started school. I grew up when the area was transitioning from fruit orchards to what eventually came to be known as Silicon Valley. One of my high school friends briefly worked in one of the early chip fabrication facilities after graduating from high school, while my first summer job in college was on the production line of a local cannery. I think you might be able to argue that Santa Clara County in those early days was a bit like a frontier relative to more established parts of the county. I know that Santa Clara County being less urbanized than the area from which we moved was an attraction for my father. The cliche is that engineers tend to be social misfits and outliers to begin with ('somewhere on the spectrum'), and it is possible that those who chose to move there self-selected for the characteristics you are talking about, creating an environment that was relatively congenial for a few of the misfits who grew up there. My impression is this is no longer the case, and that 'corporate conformity has been normalized,' as you put it (perhaps more accurately, 'corporate conformity to wokeism has been normalized'), but why and how that happened is a separate topic.
What about the tech entrepreneurs and early internet pioneers? I see a lot of talk about how quickly the internet seemed to have been tamed from its early more "open" days in the 90's and early 00's. Not sure what that all means. Perhaps even where there are autonomy seekers, the forces of conformity are overwhelming. But are some of the most successful tech entrepreneurs to blame? Their companies are the ones often blamed for tech/internet restrictions and conformity. Autonomy for me, but not for thee?
Yes, in many explicit, obvious (to some) ways we select for conformity. One example is trying to teach in a highly structured, controlled environment where kids have to stay in their seats and listen. But having said that, compared to kids in China who learn far more by rote memorization, American kids finish high school (and college?) far more creative and with better problem solving skills.
In the end, what you say about today versus earlier America is true but only in a relative way. And I'd argue US still has at least it's fair share of nonconformists, entrepreneurs, innovators, etc. even if we still wish there were more of them and we did a better job of nurturing in that direction.
"wage-slaves"
Are we adopting socialist terminology now?
"But I noticed that I was more likely to see future entrepreneurship in the kids who were rebellious."
Be careful, there, about the direction of causation.
When animals are domesticated, the physical differences between male and female often diminish due to lack of evolutionary competition in the wild. If humans are becoming more domesticated, are we seeing the same thing?
I fear most college grads who grinded thru their studies are looking for the lowest risk path into the upper middle class or lower upper class, 70-95 income percentiles. Low risk means not starting up a company.
I’d guess especially those from broken homes would be a bit more risk averse, while also having far less family support for starting something up. Not sure there is data about the start up founders’ families.
This made me think of Robin Hanson's status-drunk hypothesis, that we use absolute wealth to judge relative status, believe we have high relative status, and seek out further status. But he indicates that higher status animals tend to be leaders and therefore peacemakers. Recueil's data seems at tension with this. I wonder if this tension is resolvable, or if they have incompatible views.
https://www.overcomingbias.com/p/our-big-wealth-status-mistakehtml