[chronotis]

I grew up in suburban Midwest America. Monoculture is great if you're aligned with the monoculture, but it's quite miserable if you're unwilling or unable to conform.

I went on to start my career on the east coast over 25 years ago, and then the west coast (Boston / SF / SEA / LA). I'm now back in a Midwestern monoculture community because of family. It's not an easy cultural adjustment if you've acclimated to something that's not monoculture.

In my case, the appeal of large city blended culture is that (1) I can find my tribe much more easily and (2) the tribes all have to get along because there's no dominant tribe enforcing its norms on the others. (There's obviously generalization in this statement, but I'd argue that relative to a monoculture community that these things are more truth than not. SF, SEA and others have plenty of challenges, but IMHO it's in part because they've become monocultures, or at least tech has become the dominant tribe and asserts its will on other cultures.)

If you enjoy living in the monoculture you occupy, there's no reason to leave. Visiting or temporarily living in blended cultures will not feel better to you, as it causes more stress than where you came from. But it's very presumptuous to assume that others would find living in "flyover" country better than the life they currently lead.

[rayiner]

> grew up in suburban Midwest America. Monoculture is great if you're aligned with the monoculture, but it's quite miserable if you're unwilling or unable to conform.

The conformity is kind of the point and makes it better for the rest of us.

[dylan604]

And there it is! We only want ourselves to be comfy, but nobody cares what effect it has on anyone else. Just as long as everyone conforms to your way of thinking.

I really don't care if you want to live an limited life experience and assume it is the only possible way of life. But when you start telling other people that they must live like you want them to because they want to live in the same area you do is just too much to take. It doesn't truly affect you other than you have to accept something you don't agree.

[throwaway894345]

> In small town USA, the local culture usually is inferior.

> And there it is! We only want ourselves to be comfy, but nobody cares what effect it has on anyone else. Just as long as everyone conforms to your way of thinking.

Can you please lower the rhetorical temperature?

> But when you start telling other people that they must live like you want them to because they want to live in the same area you do is just too much to take.

There's plenty of cultural orthodoxy in cities as well, it's probably just more agreeable to you.

[wolverine876]

> There's plenty of cultural orthodoxy in cities as well, it's probably just more agreeable to you.

What are you referring to? In large cities, you can think and do what you want and nobody will much care or notice unless you force them to.

[throwaway894345]

I’ve seen people accosted in public for wearing conservative political t-shirts or hats on multiple occasions in Chicago. It was pretty frothing there from 2016 to 2020, and I’m not even a conservative.

[wolverine876]

Wow, never seen it in a city, and I've been around plenty. You see the absolute craziest things in cities and nobody even notices - it's part of the culture. It's a running joke.

[rayiner]

> We only want ourselves to be comfy, but nobody cares what effect it has on anyone else. Just as long as everyone conforms to your way of thinking.

I do care what effect it has on others. I want say 80% of people to be comfy. Often that involves imposing norms on the other 20%. There’s lots of norms that (1) a majority like and benefit from that (2) break down if you don’t enforce them on the minority.

Unrestricted individual choice can affect others by changing market conditions and creating what in economic terms you’d call a race to the bottom. That’s the logic behind OSHA regulations and the minimum wage, for example. You can apply the same logic to social and cultural issues.

[wolverine876]

So much for the fundamentals of freedom. So I can compel you to behave and live as I want? Or vice versa?

And it's completely unnecessary - in fact, people do very well living in freedom, as you can see in most places (by population) in the free world. No societies have been more successful, and it's not close.

[rayiner]

> And it's completely unnecessary - in fact, people do very well living in freedom, as you can see in most places (by population) in the free world. No societies have been more successful, and it's not close.

You’ve got the causation backward. Freedom from social conformity is a luxury wealthy societies can afford. Western countries, including America, became rich at a time when they were still quite rigidly conformist. And some of the most conformist, such as Puritan New England were the most prosperous.

It’s also worth observing that those same societies are now literally dying out. Post-Christian Europe literally has to import people from societies with rigid social norms—among others, strong social pressures to start families and raise children—to take care of their elderly.

[wolverine876]

In fact, the US was founded on religious and other freedoms. It wasn't perfect, of course, but the US has widely been more free from conformity than others, wrote it into its foundation, and has prided itself on it. You couldn't pick an example more contrary to the argument. Immigrants for generations have traveled to the US to escape the conformity forced on them in other socities (including the Puritans!), and to live how they choose. Americans have dreamed of and achieved freedom - look at the women's rights movement, which revolutionized the freedom of women.

(I have plenty of criticism of racism and other discrimination in the US. It certainly isn't ok and I am going to help fix those problems.)

> Post-Christian Europe literally has to import people from societies with rigid social norms—among others, strong social pressures to start families and raise children—to take care of their elderly.

They need immigration in that respect (and so does the US) simply because of birth rates.

Immigrants have come from those societies to the US (and certainly parts of Europe) for generations. Some are too old to give up their old ways, understandably, but their children embrace freedom and those are the people of the US today.

And again, do you cede to me the power to make you conform to what I want? Why should anyone cede it to you?

[cortesoft]

The cost of conformity is not the same for everyone. It might be easy if your natural state is fairly close to the norm you are conforming to. It is a lot worse if your natural state is in direct contradiction to the norm.

It is easy for someone who is fairly close and doesn’t have to adjust much to say that the cost of conformity is worth it for the gain.

[wolverine876]

> The conformity is kind of the point and makes it better for the rest of us.

The 'rest of us' being people outside the monoculture? Things aren't so good there.

Conformity limits people's freedom, often greatly, often in very fundamental ways. People can't chose their religion, sexual orientation, politics, interests, career, etc. You are free to chose conformity if you like, but the problem is that conformity is forced on others.

[jimmygrapes]

For those outside of the monoculture, the non conformists, why? I don't mean what makes you (nb: using the term you in the general sense) different, I mean why? And then, why are you so certain that your difference or reasons for that difference is somehow better? I can extrapolate that most answers will be things like "LGBTQIAPP+" or based on externalities like skin color, but those are low hanging (and imo pretty bland) fruits. Other answers might be religion (or rejection thereof), or taste in music, or general youthful rebellion/contrarianism. Yet other answers might be entirely unimaginable to me.

But my question remains: why are you this way and why do you think it's a better way to be than the majority? What factors external to the conformist group contributed or influenced you, if any?

For the record, I, too, have fled regions and communities, both physical and virtual, where I was a deviant. I asked myself these questions and I have answers if anyone were to ask. I'm just curious what answers others have come up with, and whether they have ever asked themselves those same questions. I'm also curious if others have found their own answers lacking and how that is handled.

[wolverine876]

> I can extrapolate that most answers will be things like "LGBTQIAPP+" or based on externalities like skin color, but those are low hanging (and imo pretty bland) fruits.

They are overwhelming, brutal, oppressive experiences of millions of people. Not bland, but poison to the people and our society.

> why are you this way and why do you think it's a better way to be than the majority?

I think this majority is non-existent - there is just too much variety. And regardless, I don't care about some 'majority'; I don't make choices for or against them - not in response to them at all. I am what I am, I live the way I want to live, the way that suits me best (which is probably most 'efficient' in many ways, including economically, matching me to resources, needs, etc.). Why would I live any other way? In fact, that attitude puts me in the majority in the US.

The whole argument smacks of another attempt by reactionaries to encroach on the freedom of others, now trying to force conformity to what they want. I'm sure they wouldn't want roles reversed!

[dredmorbius]

What's ironic of course is that the comment comes from an immigrant to the US.

Though one who's proved quite hostile to other cultures and practices.

[didibus]

That's an interesting viewpoint. So the conformity somehow makes you less nervous or anxious? Does it bring you a sense of safety and comfort? I'm just really curious what you like about it?

For me conformity has always just been boring and restricting, and I consider it an all around negative. I like to try new things, and I live to experience as much of what life can bring as I can. So I find the idea of artificially restricting ones options on how to dress, sing, what to eat, how to dance, what to make of art, what stories you can tell, how to make love, how to play, how to express yourself, what to talk about, who you can be with, what games are allowed, what you're supposed to do on Sunday morning, etc. just an all around negative. It feels like a choke hold on my life, which is the most precious thing I have, so restrictions on the extent of how much I'm allowed to live and experience seem completely unreasonable and oppressive to me.

But I'm a pretty confident and courageous person, I don't have anxieties, and I enjoy getting out of my comfort zone and trying new things, learning, discovery, are all things I'm drawn too. I know people who aren't like that, have more anxieties, so I never really thought that for them maybe conformity was like a relief, a way to take out a source of stress of the unknown with clear strict rules and conventions that they can rely on.

[rayiner]

Not really any of those things. Conformity increases social trust and reduces social transaction costs; it yields non-zero sum returns to social efficiency for the same reason standardization often does. There is a reason societies closer to the edge of survival are more rigidly conformist. It’s not because Bangladeshis or Africans are dumb or backward, but because your typical third world village would quickly die of starvation if you ran it like a California college.

Restriction of choice can likewise be welfare maximizing. People’s brains aren’t fully developed until 25. Which is remarkable if you think about it. People spend a third of their lives walking around without all their faculties. And even after that most people have trouble making good decisions. Not just dumb people, but nearly everyone. Why are there fat doctors and nurses? Rigid social norms can help people make better decisions, especially the people who need the most help with that. Again, there is a reason individual choice is emphasized almost solely in societies rich enough to afford letting people make mistakes.

[didibus]

> The conformity is kind of the point and makes it better for the rest of us

So when you say "rest of us" here you're coming from a society that's on the edge of survival?

That's a context I definitely wasn't thinking. I'd assumed based on the conversation we were talking about cities vs small towns in relatively well established countries.

Honestly, I'm not sure I buy your hypothesis though, even if I think of struggling countries, feel you'd have to back it up with more reasoning and data. I don't really see how conformity would help. It still seems to me like it's just an obstacle, all innovation or attempts at change or trying new or different ways are shut down and repressed. If the current way of life isn't yielding the kind of outcome needed to lift them above that edge of survival, continuing to strictly enforce and being against anyone trying to go against it seems counterproductive to me.

I'm not saying you get rid of law and order. But I don't see the benefits of say banning certain type of medicine, foods, dances, music, art, social interactions, love making, natural selection of a mate, methods of trade, methods of construction, etc.

> there is a reason individual choice is emphasized almost solely in societies rich enough to afford letting people make mistakes

I feel you might have the cause and effect reversed. It could just as well be that there is a reason societies that emphasize individual choice are often the ones to become prosperous and rich.

[throwaway894345]

> In my case, the appeal of large city blended culture is that (1) I can find my tribe much more easily and (2) the tribes all have to get along because there's no dominant tribe enforcing its norms on the others. (There's obviously generalization in this statement, but I'd argue that relative to a monoculture community that these things are more truth than not. SF, SEA and others have plenty of challenges, but IMHO it's in part because they've become monocultures, or at least tech has become the dominant tribe and asserts its will on other cultures.)

Alternatively, perhaps there is a dominant culture in major US cities and you simply don't feel pressure to conform (because you're already conforming). Imagine someone expressing support for traditional values, police, Israel, etc or expressing criticism of BLM, Roe v. Wade, "soft-on-crime" policies, etc in a major US city--that person would definitely feel pressure (if not harassment) to conform to progressive politics. Hell, in my major US city, I feel chafed for not believing that cars are a completely unmitigated evil, and I'm sure there are a whole lot of areas where I don't feel chafed by the dominant progressive politics.