The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority (2016)

Can a small minority push too aggressively and embolden a silent majority (or substantially larger plurality) to unify against them and feel justified in resistance? This feels like one of the major themes of the current political climate in the US and parts of EU.

Since this is Hacker News, I'll point out a way that this applies to programming: code standards and reviews. Time after time throughout my career, I've seen the most picky, idiosyncratic programmers impose their will on the rest of the project by their simple willingness to block commits until their whims are satisfied. Since review etiquette usually precludes a third person overriding another's pending objections to approve, the impasse is usually resolved by acceding to the bikeshedder's preference in the…

An interesting way of expressing a pretty simple idea: if some small group cares about something that doesn't matter much to anyone else, they're likely to get their way. And why not? If nobody else cares, then it doesn't matter whether this vocal minority gets their way or not.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12298753