Hunter Ash (@ArtemisConsort) “I fell for a lot of progressive nonsense, and hard. I was literally trans. But t” — TopicDigg

I fell for a lot of progressive nonsense, and hard. I was literally trans. But two things I can honestly say I never fell for were 1. alternative ways of knowing. Science obviously works, and it’s hard to even coherently describe an alternative. What, you aren’t taking in data or trying to parse it without contradiction? What are you even talking about? I was a new atheist technocratic progressive, and thought the extent to which other groups failed at scientific thinking was a result of disadvantage, but never that scientific thinking itself was bad. Same with everything on that smithsonian chart (being on time etc) 2. Strong anti-hereditarianism. I believed racial average differences were due to discrimination (to the extent I thought about the issue at all, which was infrequently) but the belief that *all* human cognitive differences, even within groups, are due to upbringing was always just facially absurd. There exists such a thing as a smart person, and there are aspects of it that clearly aren’t about education. They talk faster. They’re funnier. They learn *new* concepts faster. Their questions are sharper. It’s textural. It’s visceral. I didn’t know anything about psychometrics or the hereditarian debate at this point. It’s just obvious if you’ve met three humans and are honest.