Kevin Weinberg
Aug 8, 2017 · 1 min read

The lack of ironic self-awareness in this response essay is so thick, so layered, and so egregious that it simultaneously baffles and mystifies.

In just a few thousand words, Mr. Zunger, you have managed to not only contradict your own point repeatedly, but you even managed to do the very same thing you’re criticizing the Google manifesto writer of doing: making broad assumptions about people on the basis of their gender, arguing that women would make superior engineers due to their traits.

But let’s put that aside for a moment and tackle the obvious here — that you, a writer who writes about “authoritarian regimes,” would not only defend, but naturally deduce that in the course of debate over a dissenting opinion, your professional colleagues would be so unable to control themselves that they would, quote, “punch you[the manifesto writer] in the face.”

That you would instill in people a moral ideology so rigid and inflexible that the only natural recourse for disagreement is violence — this is beyond troubling.

Let me ask you, sir: who is truly creating the toxic atmosphere at your work place? The so-called “intellectuals” who cannot even tolerate an opposing view without resorting to physical acts of violence? Or someone who writes a manifesto that claims thousands of years of human evolution have resulted in genetic variations among the population and gender at large?

Or am I wrong for even asking that question? Should I, too, fear violent recriminations for having the sole audacity to question your orthodoxy?