I don't think Twitter did this deliberately. No doubt they were just following engagement numbers, as I so often advise startups to do. But the result is that they've created a powerful machine for enforcing conformity.
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I can't believe I didn't make this connection when I was writing "The Four Quadrants of Conformism" (http://paulgraham.com/conformism.html ), but we shouldn't be surprised that the aggressively conventional-minded love quote-tweets. It's the perfect form for those who were tattletales as kids.
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Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Best historical analogy I can come up with is the French Revolution -> The Terror. Large numbers of people self-enforcing conformity using immediate emotional reactions as a guide in a winner-take-all format never ends well.
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Please explain. Why do conformists like quote tweets? (Speaking as someone who has used them liberally)
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I used to reply and like and tweet. Still think it’s most direct engagement. Quote-tweeting, though, enables taking the conversation in a different direction in a different group... 1/
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A great example of how bad the quote tweet feature of Twitter can be when it is specifically used to "move" the context of someone's tweet from one community (the tweeter's followers) to another (the quoter's), then losing all context, details, history, shibboleths, and so on
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quote-tweeting exists almost entirely for dunking/in-group signalling. having quote tweets as an alternative to straight retweets/responses is most likely harmful to discourse
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With great power comes... Enjoy the monster you helped create. I took you as someone who acts, but looks like these days you're busy tweeting. Btw, there are alternatives to twitter. But, you're still here!
Thanks. Twitter will use this to make your timeline better. UndoUndo
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Just read this for the first time and loved it. Maybe you've already thought of this, but another reason that universities changed is that the aggressively independent-minded stopped believing that they need a university degree. In fact, going to uni puts you on the left half
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IMO, there's even more conformity in the postgrad scene. Try selecting a PhD thesis that calls into question your professor's pet theory.
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That's pretty good, but it seems like it should be possible to make the colors vary in two dimensions, like the qualities being represented. You have lots of options there: value, warmth, chroma.
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