But rationalism could also be a mode of historical disengagement that ignored or absolved massive power imbalances. A popular rationality podcast covered topics such as free will and moral responsibility; cognitive bias; the ethics of vote trading. When the podcast did an episode with an evolutionary psychologist who identified as a transhumanist, bivalvegan classical liberal, she and the host discussed designer babies optimized for attractiveness without once bringing up race or the history of eugenics. Arguing fervently about a world that was not actually the world struck me as vaguely
...more

