The Four Quadrants of Conformism
&quot;Here&#x27;s a taxonomy of people that I just made up. There are four types of people, classified by superficial characteristics. Actually, this classification is an extremely strong indicator for behaviour, certainly stronger than other indicators. How do I know this? I am very smart and I say so.<p>Based on this fact, I notice that the social-justicy types of today bear some superficial and extremely tenuous resemblance to the pro-slavery types of yesterday. Really makes you think.&quot;<p>I&#x27;m sorry but this comes across as total nonsense to me. Any &quot;there are x types of people&quot; stuff always reads as astrology for people with STEM degrees, especially when it&#x27;s as ill-supported as the types given in this article.<p>Also the article is pretty ahistorical: being &quot;pro-slavery&quot; was absolutely not the unanimous consensus that we like to pretend it was today. There was widespread opposition to slavery: many viewed it as an obvious moral evil. France banned slavery in 1315, for goodness&#x27; sake. People <i>knew</i> it was wrong.<p>In actual fact, the type of people arguing against abolition were people in a much more similar position to Graham: the Economist famously urged delay with regards to abolition, fearing what freed slaves might get up to. Graham&#x27;s notion that &quot;actually, I&#x27;m much more like the abolitionists than slaveowners because we&#x27;re both such iconoclasts&quot; is extremely weak and, on its face, a little ridiculous.<p>(also: does Graham really think he&#x27;s going against the grain with this stuff? Last I checked, opposition to &quot;cancel culture&quot; and censorship is about as mainstream a position as there is. It would be hard to pick a more &quot;conventionally-minded&quot; opinion than &quot;I think free speech is good&quot;)