Weirdos are valuable, but should be somewhat rare. Further, weirdos have a much wider distribution of success, with many living miserable lives, and a few living great ones. Trying to adjust this is a harmful encouragement for normals to be weird.
Your point about the normal2weirdo-ratio is excellent! I haven’t considered that yet. I agree that you’re more likely to struggle when you’re an outlier than be a success story.
Additionally, even if an unconventional set of behaviours benefits an individual, it might not be scalable. An example that comes to mind is people foraging for food in dumpsters (are they called freegans?). While that might sustain a few people per city, it’s hardly a population-wide solution. Generally speaking, adhering to the norm should be more scalable.
Thank you! It took me some courage to post here, but I’m glad I did.
I don’t remember Peterson mentioning that. The two quotes I posted are pretty much everything he explicitly stated on that topic. It’s in the spirit of the agreement extent game to generate your own pro-arguments for the opposition’s point, though.
I think you make an intriguing point with the “check your privilege” argument. Another example of social norms that protect poor/oppressed people is the idea that certain things that are off-limits to acquire/take – even if you have the recourses to pull it off. We would probably have many more Jeffrey Epsteins if not for that norm.