7 ms·
What's the hinted present-day ideology he dare not challenge?
by hyperpallium 9y ago
What's the hinted present-day ideology he dare not challenge?
- rodgerd 9y agoFrom the references to secret police and gulags I can only assume he's blogging from North Korea or Iran or Turkey or somesuch.
- idlewords 9y agoTexas.
- rodgerd 9y agoHuh. I must have missed the bit where there were secret police rounding up dissedents and sticking them in camps where they were worked to death in Texas. I'm surprised I haven't heard more about it.
- defen 9y agoThe question is where he's blogging from, which is probably Texas since he's a professor at UT Austin. The beauty of his blogpost is that depending on your perspective you can choose to read as pertaining to Texas (probably going to ban most insurance coverage for abortion) or "gender stuff" (Google manifesto fallout)
- rodgerd 9y agoBut in either case, the comparison to the Soviet Union is so ridiculous as to undermine any ability to use it a resonable springboard for discussion.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kenbaylor 9y agoA veiled James Damore ('Google Manifesto') analogy perhaps?
- kurthr 9y agoHe says, 'I welcome discussion about the responses of Galileo, Kolmogorov, and other historical figures to official ideologies that they didn’t believe in; and about the meta-question of how a truth-valuing person ought to behave when living under such ideologies. In the hopes of maintaining a civil discussion, any comments that mention current hot-button ideological disputes will be ruthlessly deleted.' so it doesn't sound that way to me... more likely related to something in the Texas legislature, though he might be sympathetic to someone who's been dogpiled by the modern media.
- pron 9y agoDamore is no Galileo. He wrote about a subject he knows little about, didn't seriously research, and one that he actually doesn't seem too interested in studying at all. He wanted to enjoy the appearance of a "forbidden truth" while not caring to put in the effort of actually acquiring it. Aside from the fact that his opinion isn't popular in his immediate circle (yet far from revolutionary, and indeed very common among the ruling party in his country), he is a far cry from the iconoclast scientists who care deeply about a subject, devote their lives to studying it, know its ins and outs, and research it with fiery intensity.
- EliRivers 9y agoEquality / diversity attitudes such as those espoused by Google. See recent events.
- ZeroGravitas 9y agoHe previously got caught up in an internet drama. It's hard to summarize, but he made a comment about how being a nerdy straight male was harder than being a woman or gay and how reading feminist books made him suicidal. He got a bit of blowback on that and so probably a reference to that: http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664 http://www.scottaaronson.com/blog/?p=2091#comment-326664
- ianai 9y agoWe react to the harshness before us most. But what we perceive personally is always an anecdote.
- strken 9y agoTo add a bit more context, his comment is highly personal and deals with how he felt ashamed of his sexuality during his childhood and teenage years. His self-loathing was apparently so bad that he asked a doctor to chemically castrate him. His comments need to be read in the context of his life, because unlike the infamous memo they were highly personal, and that makes them hard to summarise fairly. I really like his blog, even if it's mostly beyond me. It would be a shame if anyone drew a negative conclusion about Scott without first reading what he wrote.
- idlewords 9y agoScott Aaronson is a wonderful human being, and seeing the attacks against him, and how they have changed him, has been very painful.
- defen 9y agoHe didn't say "being a nerdy straight male was harder than being a woman or gay" - he said that when he was a teenager he was so ashamed of his sexuality that he wished he were gay or a woman so that he wouldn't have what he perceived to be shameful sexual desire toward women. He was the rare self-loathing straight man, and people on the internet literally wanted to ruin his career or even kill him for admitting it. Imagine a white person who has so internalized the logic of white privilege that they are utterly ashamed of their race and wish they were black - it doesn't mean that person thinks black people have it easier than whites.