We are social animals, and conformity is part of our social adaptation. We imitate others. This imitation is not just superficial. It is deep. We imitate the structure of knowledge in other brains. For example, you learned language by absorbing knowledge from other people. That knowledge is subconscious. You use it every time you interpret or generate language, but you have no conscious access to it. You absorbed it subconsciously, and you apply it subconsciously.
In the past, conformity was a good heuristic. Common memes were probably adaptive. If a meme was harmful to its hosts, they would not prosper. So, if you imitated the successful people in your community, you would likely be successful too. People lived in small societies, and they lived close to nature. Their memes were regularly tested by reality, and by each other. False beliefs could arise, such as religion, but such beliefs were tested for their adaptiveness. It was hard for a maladaptive meme to spread.
Conformity is unreliable if any of the following are true: 1. Most people are crazy. 2. You can choose your social circle. 3. You are exposed to artificial people. (see the rest of the post in the link)
The Modern Problems with Conformity
Link post
We are social animals, and conformity is part of our social adaptation. We imitate others. This imitation is not just superficial. It is deep. We imitate the structure of knowledge in other brains. For example, you learned language by absorbing knowledge from other people. That knowledge is subconscious. You use it every time you interpret or generate language, but you have no conscious access to it. You absorbed it subconsciously, and you apply it subconsciously.
In the past, conformity was a good heuristic. Common memes were probably adaptive. If a meme was harmful to its hosts, they would not prosper. So, if you imitated the successful people in your community, you would likely be successful too. People lived in small societies, and they lived close to nature. Their memes were regularly tested by reality, and by each other. False beliefs could arise, such as religion, but such beliefs were tested for their adaptiveness. It was hard for a maladaptive meme to spread.
Conformity is unreliable if any of the following are true: 1. Most people are crazy. 2. You can choose your social circle. 3. You are exposed to artificial people. (see the rest of the post in the link)