So many of my favorite people are independent thinkers: they seek their own data and derive their own (tentative) conclusions.

Recently, however, I realized that such people — we? — are a handicap to factions we’re a part of.

Let me try to explain.

Suppose the leaders of three factions — A, B, and C — are meeting to hash out some deal. The A and B factions are full of sheep (easily herded), while the C faction is mostly cats (famously not).

A and B will find it relatively easy to bargain with each other. Crucially, the leaders of each faction can credibly promise things to each other:

“I can give X if you give Y.”

“Will your people be OK with that?”

“Yeah, I’ll explain it was necessary and they’ll fall in line.”

But C is at a sharp disadvantage, because C has little influence over her constituents. Whatever she tries to “promise,” all the independent thinkers back home will be just as likely to grumble and undermine the effort as go along with it.

“Hey C, can you give us Z as part of the bargain?”

[C, imagining her den of cats] “Uhhhh...”

This is how C is constrained at the bargaining table: by her inability to make credible commitments.

Tbh this gives me more appreciation for people who mostly just follow along. In one sense, they’re sheeple. In another, they’re team players.

People with an independent mind make poor followers *by definition.* Thus to think for yourself, especially in public on topics which might become chips in a political negotiation, is a danger to your faction — unless it’s a successful bid for leadership.

(ceteris paribus etc. etc.)