In the last day or two, I've been accused of being at Harvard due to affirmative action numerous times by swarms of alt-right commenters. Essentially because I wrote a thread questioning whether "merit" is a useful notion in building scientific communities. 1/🧵
If you're wondering what the logical connection is between my thoughts on the sociology of science and whether some committee unbeknownst to me may or may not have admitted me due to diversity considerations, I don't know. I myself struggle to see the connection. 2/
The affirmative action charge seems to be performing the same linguistic function as the N-word i.e. something presumably hurtful that you can say specifically to a black person when you get extremely angry. It doesn't seem to have any relationship to my behavior. 3/
The goal seems to be to suggest inherent irredeemable inferiority regardless of external achievements since these achievements aren't "real". I'm not going to defend my achievements because that would imply I think affirmative action is a bad thing and I don't. 4/
The reason why one would seek out rare individuals during the admission process seems as obvious to me as the reason why a jeweler would choose to craft a ring from a blue diamond when they had access to thousands of white ones. Because the outcome would be uniquely beautiful. 5/
I'm not really in doubt of my intelligence. Sometimes I wish I was less intelligent. My life might be more pleasant. This slander is obviously meant to police me. "Say what we want or we'll claim you're incompetent." I think I would have to be incompetent to fall for that. 🧵/
