Is conformism a viable survival strategy?
We celebrate heroes, entrepreneurs, artists, and independent thinkers. These individuals are often showcased as beacons of innovation and progress.
Yet, despite this glorification, conformism remains is the norm, not exception through all observed history.
The paradox
At any given moment, the majority tends to follow established norms, whether they are being conservative or simply unable to form independent thoughts.
If we value independence and innovation so highly, why do conformists continue to outnumber independent thinkers?
Is there an inherent advantage to conformism that ensures its prevalence, or are we merely paying lip service to the idea of valuing independence?
Evolutionary perspectives on conformism and defiance
From an evolutionary standpoint, traits that confer a survival advantage are more likely to persist and propagate.
If independent thinking provided a clear evolutionary edge, you should expect independent thinkers to gradually outpace conformists.
However, historical observation contradicts this expectation. Conformists have consistently outnumbered independent thinkers across different eras.
This begs the question:
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Does independent thinking hold an evolutionary disadvantage?
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Does conformism offer unseen benefits that contribute to group survival and cohesion?
Deep diving conformism
It is easy to have low opinions about conformism, or towards conformists. Yet, most of us don't recognize how much conformism we do on a regularly basis.
It makes a lot of sense to follow the crowd. In data science, there is a K-Nearest Neighbors algorithm that is used very often and efficient to compute, especially if the application needs to make the prediction fast.
An example of a KNN is to associate a Japanese user with the average Japanese user. The software doesn't try to do fancy computation to model the user at high fidelity.
In financial markets, there is a trend following strategy, or ARIMA models, where the prediction of prices is based on past few day's prices. It's more "braindead" relative to exhaustively analyzing earnings report, growth rates, transcripts to predict prices and to generate a new valuation every time data changes.
Conformism brings order and stability, allowing societies to function smoothly. It facilitates the scaling of power and resources, which can enhance the collective evolutionary fitness of a group.
"Trust the process" works well in the sense that the group can save on computing and decision cost. The catch is that the process must keep working.
So a group of conformist who happened to be lucky enough to follow a right set of values will grow fast enough to destroy the population of a group of deviants who are either busy doing their own thing, or busy disagreeing among themselves.
However, if the conformist values misalign, mistakes cascades and wrong social directions are hard to stop -- the Pied Piper of Hamlin will lead all rats to drown in the river.
Conformism can also be exploited a subset of manipulative deviants, as values get hijacked to benefit a small cabal of deviants (cult leaders and equivalents).
Evolutionary disadvantage of deviants
Independent thinkers, while often celebrated, frequently face challenges that conformists do not.
While we see glorious success from a selected few independent thinkers and frequently talk about them, it is often the case we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg.
Many artists, intellectuals, and other independent thinkers struggle financially and in terms of reproductive success. 1. This raises questions about the evolutionary viability of independent thinking and deviance.
In fact, we could use the market perspective to understand the quantitative tradeoffs and ROI between conformism and independent thinking.
In most advanced economies, the number of salaried workers (conformists) is much higher than the number of entrepreneurs (deviants).
Interestingly, the average earnings of salaried workers is higher than the average earnings of entrepreneurs -- an evidence of the survival advantage of conformism. 2
In ancient China, independent barbarians get defeated or absorbed by the more conforming empire.
AI simulations on conformism and defiance
The market perspective used to understand the quantitative tradeoffs between conformism and independent thinking is one way to do it, but we could also use AI simulations to explore the interplay between environmental factors, incentive structures, and behavioral outcomes.
By observing how AI agents respond to different reward functions, we can gain a better understanding of when and why humans might lean towards conformism or independent thinking.
So far, the most interesting AI agents used to simulate human cooperation is the Axelrod project.
The discovery is that the greatest survivors are agents who employ "Tit-for-tat" strategies in iterative Prisoner's Dilemma games.
Perhaps, a similar agent simulation could be used to discover the natural bias of agents towards conformism or defiance when status conscious becomes a parameter.
Footnotes
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Sigh, I knew you would take it the wrong way. I don't mean these people get less sex. Reproduction success in this context is more like the ability to replicate more independent thinkers. So a conformist builds social momentum faster than a deviant. So conformism grows like locusts, while deviance grows like a sequoia. ↩
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That doesn't mean you should be a salaried worker for life. I've done a deep macro research explaining how job security is a debt-financed illusion. ↩