Just ordered on audio. I'm really liking the rise of the honest, thoughtful lefty's.
Not sure Pinker would call himself a lefty. He gets attacked by both sides. I think the left dislikes a lot of his evolutionary psychology stuff...
That's when you know you're an independent thinker: Once one side accuses you of being on the other side and vice versa, and all you're trying to do is figure out what's what on a case by case basis, so you don't fit into the nice arbitrary binary tribal divide that most people slot themselves into.
I thought he considered himself a classical liberal. His views on gender certainly aren't post modernist. It seems many independent thinkers are finding themselves in no man's land lately.
It's interesting how often people's thinking is binary. It's to the point where I have to couch everything I say in "insofar" "inasmuch" "to the degree/extent". It's really bizarre to me folks can't contextualize anything I say and consider my implied probability, but they can't! If they would just listen it would be clear i was speaking of a small majority or a substantial minority etc.
About a year ago having dinner with two couples from SF in france after a day of climbing we had a conversation that ended, reductio ad absurdam, with me asking them if it would be okay to transport (a la star trek) an unwanted baby from a pre abortive mother. After overcoming their objections regarding the safety of transporters, they all said no, it's the mother's choice. In deep space 9 this was done between Nourice and Kaiko.
There's no room for nuance in a binary party line. The beginning of the conversation started with, "is it a human life at 8 months".
Anyways, Steven is a interesting guy. Thanks for the reminder.
