Being stroppy

For malcontents too perverse to be contrarian like everyone else

2025-03-19 — 2025-05-24

adaptive
collective knowledge
economics
evolution
game theory
networks
social graph
sociology

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Content warning:

Links to and discussion of edgy people with perverse opinions on hot-button topics too diverse to mention but which surely include gender, eugenics, speech and religion

Notes on eccentrics, mavericks, outsider geniuses and fools. What my family called stroppy people.

Lacking an identifiable label so you show up in diversity metrics? Not sure whether you are rebelling against society or conforming to a subgroup? How do you get by as a mad outsider? Will you be right twice a day?

Do you want to find a rationale for people like you? How about the justification that you are useful for innovation? Or be an outlier without a cause?

Figure 1

1 Crazy ideas are mostly wrong

Case studies?

2 Deviants

For an interesting perspective on whether taking one for the team and being the house oddball is worthwhile, see Olga Khazan on Living and Flourishing While Being Weird (). From Jenara Nerenberg () I learned about Jolanda Jetts’s theory of constructive Deviance (), which is a model I am fond of.

Figure 2

3 Genius or madness?

For the really interesting cases, this question only works ex ante.

4 Interesting people

5 Incoming

Figure 3: Thanks Jim Benton
Figure 4

6 References

Faux. 2023. Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall.
Georgi. 2022. “Physics in a Diverse World or A Spherical Cow Model of Physics Talent.” arXiv:2203.09485 [Hep-Ph, Physics:hep-Th, Physics:physics].
Jetten, and Hornsey. 2014. “Deviance and Dissent in Groups.” Annual Review of Psychology.
Kashdan. 2021. The Art of Insubordination: How to Dissent and Defy Effectively.
Khazan. 2021. Weird: The Power of Being an Outsider in an Insider World.
Lewis. 2023. Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon.
Nerenberg. 2025. Trust Your Mind: Embracing Nuance in a World of Self-Silencing.
Page. 2008. The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies - New Edition.
Stephens, Rivera, and Townsend. 2020. “What Works to Increase Diversity? A Multi-Level Approach.” Research in Organizational Behavior.
Swann Jr, Jetten, Gómez, et al. 2012. “When Group Membership Gets Personal: A Theory of Identity Fusion.” Psychological Review.
Syed. 2020. Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking.
Touboul. 2019. “The Hipster Effect: When Anticonformists All Look the Same.”