This doesn't seem to contradict itself.
* Protestors of police brutality who are in the main completely peaceful and capable of self-policing. These people tend to do normal protest things like blocking the streets, yelling at cars, holding signs, and similar. That's totally fine and should be protected by law. Their leaders are often seen keeping the rest of the group from pushing up against barricades and otherwise inciting violence.
* Small groups of what I can only describe as fringe counterculture people who are hiding in these protest groups waiting for an opportunity to incite violence. These people use the mask laws in many localities to hide their identity, and are doing things like dropping piles of bricks off in protest zones, throwing molotov cocktails into fast food restaurants and running, breaking windows and looting stores, and pushing the peaceful protestors into the riot control police. These are most certainly non-conformists, but we should not tolerate these behaviors if we want to live in a civil society. And the peaceful protestors are getting caught up in the dragnets.
The police make no effort to distinguish between the two groups in most cases. During protests in the 60's there's ample evidence that the police were part of the second group. So it's probable the violence is being incited by certain groups who are interested in silencing the peaceful protestors.
If that makes me an aggressive conformist to hold those views, then I will gladly be one. Non-conformity should not be the goal. And frankly if this is how it's defined, it's a stupid label.
None of that matters. The point of the protests, to combat USA racism in general and also the specific racism of violent USA police, is more important than the form of the protests. If we truly do support these goals, we won't be sidetracked by potential insurance claims of large corporations. Instead we will interrogate myths we've accepted by dint of constant media gaslighting. MLK did not oppose destructive protest in general. Destructive protests are not counterproductive; in many instances they have had far more significant positive effect than any number of candlelit vigils. The police don't work for us (even if "us" means "us white folks"); they work for wealthy property owners. Many black Americans do support effective protests, even if the only black Americans allowed on cable news are very worried about "white anarchists". Much of the destruction you fear is the rational action of black citizens who've had to deal with this shit for a really long time.
Violence is ugly, and it's hard to control, especially when it's group-on-group violence. It's surprisingly easy for the oppressed to become the oppressor when the smoke settles. If you have a way to avoid that, then go right ahead.
The victims of violence aren't large corporations; they're individual people whose homes and neighborhoods and businesses are not safe. The very people that the protesters claim to be protesting on behalf of.
The valid claim of the protesters that the rule of law is not applied equally to everyone, as it should be, is undermined when people use the protests as a cover to violate the rule of law themselves.
The property being destroyed by rioters and looters in the current wave largely belongs to individuals and small businesses, although there have been some large corporations affected (e.g., Macy's in NYC was looted).
> Violence against individual humans is a separate issue.
I agree that it is worse to harm or kill a human directly than to harm or destroy their property. However, since many people's property is essential to their livelihood, harming or destroying property is still a very serious matter and should not be condoned.
> You're free to assume that this has nothing to do with the public health and economic situation (and self-interested voluntary decisions of police) and may be blamed entirely on protests
Rioting and looting is not a valid response to the COVID-19 situation any more than it is a valid response to inequality before the law and corruption on the part of the police (and the local governments that are responsible for police corruption).
I'm glad we agree that property owned by large corporations and covered by insurance is not something to worry about.
"Rioting and looting" (since we must constantly distract ourselves from the goals of protests that are manifestly mostly not those things) may not be a "valid" response to disease per se. In USA, we have seen multiple giant "bailout" laws passed in response to this disease, in nearly legislatively unanimous fashion, which have mostly given trillions of dollars to rich people while not changing the public health situation at all. At the same time, smaller expenditures in other nations have solved the problem to much greater extents than we've managed here. As a result, people in our families will die who would not have died if they lived in e.g. New Zealand or China or South Korea or Germany or Cuba. In that context, burning down some wealthy store that already received a giant handout from the government seems about right to me. In addition, we always expect crime to increase somewhat during economic downturns.
Destructive protests are the only thing that has ever moved the needle at all on police brutality. Just look at Ferguson: decades of no action and inexorably worse policy, followed by immediate changes once the burning started. It's almost as if the white power structure doesn't care about the lived experiences of black, brown, and indigenous people, and only responds when it is forced to do so.
I did not say I agreed with that.
> since we must constantly distract ourselves from the goals of protests that are manifestly mostly not those things
I am doing no such thing. I am simply drawing an important distinction that you appear to be unwilling or unable to draw, between justified protest and unjustified violence.
Other aggressively conventional minded people believe in the the rules of ever explosive growth, exploitation and free market capitalism.
The ideas do conflict with each other obviously.
The essay gives the example of abolitionism that some aggressively conventional minds back in history would be in support of slavery and other aggressively conventional mind would be opposing slavery.
Within the concept of the essay what does non conformist really mean? Are social justice and true equality ideas that belong only on the independent side of the quadrant?
PG seems to be calling out "cancel culture" with this essay, but I think the people on both sides of that argument are conforming. The independent thinkers are busy with things that actually matter and aren't paying attention.
I can't think of many people that I would label truly independent thinkers. The first that comes to my mind is maybe Richard Stallman, but that's about it.
What on earth makes you think that?
I see. Perhaps this will change your mind?:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunger_in_the_United_Kingdom
Many great progressive ideas and movements have been taken over by aggressive conformists. The ideas get perverted into something far less useful and overly specific.
Lets move the discussion into something less political!
In tech this happens too. Cargo cult engineering anyone? Agile methodology and OOP are two huge examples: they started as radical, useful ideas too. But often today people argue overly specific rules of implementation rather than asking why these things exist, where they came from and where they fit.
Progressives don't necessarily agree with other progressives. At least a subgroup wouldn't self describe as such.
This was tried to communicate very often, for example with reference to diversity of opinion. It was, perhaps with some reason, seen as an argument against diversity of skin colors.
Which is fine, I guess. I personally didn't think the letter was so awful. It's hardly the worst problem in a world where we have federal paramilitary units being deployed to pick fights with hippies, but there are excesses (David Shor for sure shouldn't have been fired).
The problem is there's a baby vs. bathwater issue with the reasoning. The same people who spit bile about Shor are the ones who just pushed BLM from a fringe idea that couldn't get purchase into something approaching social consensus. Did anyone see the ballgame last night? What's your position on Kaepernick now?
The text of the letter is hard to argue against. The context in which it was presented, and especially the way it was leveraged on the right as an "a-ha!" moment to disparage many of the demographics that were supposed to have "signed" it was quite different.
Republicans view that letter as an admission of guilt on the part of the left, when the intent was to call back absolutist rhetoric everywhere. It didn't work.
[1] From the perspective of the activist left: the powerful looking to suppress checks on their power from new voices.
As I'm sure you know, people like PG, and me, and the many, many other people who share many common beliefs with the progressive left, do not criticize social justice and equality. What we are finding extraordinarily problematic currently is the people on the progressive left who are the most vocal champions of social justice and equality, in particular their intolerance, deplatforming, certainty that their's is the only true view, etc.
There are so many people out there who want to say they were part of "Y Co" but aren't really interested in making or doing anything. Bossing people around and having status has some appeal to them, but taking some actual stand is just too dangerous. Some rich dude like like Paul Graham might reject them, they wouldn't want people to think they were S1W's or anything
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHyCIDu6dSY
I think Mr. Graham needs some diversity in his life. Maybe he should spend a night in a hotel in Marin County or Gilroy would open up his vistas.
(Oh, but you know Y Co wouldn't be effective at all if it was moved across the street from where it is -- if Altman and Graham had any self conciousness or thought where their arguments lead they'd realize they are arguing for 100% local taxation on themselves because the only value behind Y Co is the holy land which is the only place where rich people will let you have an exit... Except for China)