The Four Quadrants of Conformism
I have come to intensely dislike most of PG's essays, for many reasons, but the two main ones are that<p>1/ he plays fast and loose with the facts, reduces the whole history of (the various peoples of) humanity to a single arrow, and confuses demonstration with affirmation<p>and, more importantly<p>2/ he has an unhealthy obsession with "classifying" people, by which he actually means ranking them, from top to bottom. The people on top are the ones that make the world move in the right direction, and the ones at the bottom are dragging us all down. (Of course, he always ends up in the best category himself.)<p>But innovation isn't good <i>per se</i>. If you invent novel ways of torturing people (or animals, cf. the whole meat industry), that's not progress.<p>If you come up with clever ways of escaping the law for your own benefit while everyone else suffers (the whole "gig economy"), that's not a net gain for society, and society is legitimate in fighting you.