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What's the hinted present-day ideology he dare not challenge?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A veiled James Damore ('Google Manifesto') analogy perhaps?
He 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'…
There's been a few of these articles linked on HN recently, including Paul Graham's original http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html, with a more or less identical thesis (be quiet) that camouflages real message: that the author is signalling support for the heresy, carefully.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A veiled James Damore ('Google Manifesto') analogy perhaps?
He 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'…
When worldview A is dominant, problems are framed in terms of A. It's literally hard to have those 'hey, that's funny' moments. And when I do, it's easy to dismiss them. I haven't thought as deeply as the worldview A people, i'm probably forgetting some minor detail. Worldview B people are trained scientists, who spend years honing the 'hey that's funny' detector. I can't compete with that.
Maybe i'm weird. I don't think so. I've had my insights about programming problems, but there are so many topics where i'm simply ignorant. There are so many subjects where i'm a fish, i can't see the water.
The author brought up sexual orientation. I am not a human sexuality researcher. I don't care to be one. My information comes from the culture i live in. I was incredibly happy for friends that were able to marry. If i lived a hundred years ago, i strongly doubt i would hold that same view.
I agree with the author, because culture creates defaults. Push culture when you can. Make better defaults. Most people don't change the factory settings. They are lazy. Or busy. Or really just don't care.
Riots and revolutions are difficult to start because of a number of obstacles:
* It is not clear how many sympathizers you have.
* Even if you believe you have the numbers, being the first to act may result in you being made an example of by the authorities.
It's smarter then to rely on more ambiguous signals. Playing stupid is a good way to do this. The problem is, the people who want to "stick it to the man" are generally young people who still process emotions with their amygdala - they can't keep their ego in check and pretend they don't realize they are contradicting the official doctrine.
It's fun to think you can be like Martin Luther, nailing The 95 Theses to the church door. We only hear about Martin Luther because of a quite literal survivor bias. Also, Luther survived because he claimed to not be challenging the Vatican's authority, but simply having a scholarly debate. He was also quite lucky that the secular authorities were lenient (perhaps for political reasons - there were lessor nobles who weren't so keen on the Holy Roman Emperor's authority).
What's the hinted present-day ideology he dare not challenge?
He 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
So he's willing to concede space on the scientific landscape in the face of increasingly oppressive 'political correctness'? Don't research something if it may hurt someones feelings! Great.