Aaronson seems happier or at least more composed now, though. A few months have gone by since that post.
I have friends who are sincere, thoughtful pro-lifers. I admire, if nothing else, their principled dedication to a moral stance that regularly gets condemned in academia. But I’d also say to them: even if you think of abortion as murder, a solid majority of Americans don’t, and it’s hard to see a stable way of getting what you want that skips the step where you change those Americans’ minds.
Sure, but no one ever gets called a nutter for the reasonable things they say - if you pick only the reasonable statements of course he is going to look reasonable.
How about this one?
> More than that: if Texas continues on what half the country sees as a journey back to the Middle Ages, with no opt-outs allowed for the residents of its left-leaning urban centers, Dana and I will not be able to remain here, and many of our friends won’t either.
When, according to him, half the country disagrees with him, he'll just move, and (the delusional part) he thinks all his friends will move too. Note he was careful to say that neither he/his wife nor his friends/family will actually be affected by this, but yeah, it's a reason to move?
> fueled the growth of the radical right that’s now all but destroyed America.
Yeah, right. a tiny group so far in the minority that it isn't even a rounding error has "all but destroyed America". His argument is the same as Make America Great Again, with the same level of evidence for his claims.
Add in the fact that he thinks this political issue is a threat to computer science ... well, it's obviously a threat to his identity as a person, so he is extending "anything that is a threat to my identity is a threat to humanity, and by extension everything produced by humanity ... like Computer Science".
Yeah, he's a nutter; he's obviously very engaged in this discussion and sadly he has tied his identity of self to it and feels threatened when the discussion happens because he proposes that the mere discussion of this topic will result in a scorched earth-type of endgame.
