For all my criticisms of Peter Thiel, I think he’s a smart guy (though, I don’t know if he’s changed or I have, but I’m thinking this less lately). But anyways to try and understand Thiel and Vance a bit better, I’ve been reading a bit of Catholic moral philosophy, and what I find interesting, is that when I look at the foundations of all the arguments, I think there’s something in the brain, or a value, that either you see this sort of fundamental view about something like gender - ignoring within group differences in favor of between group differences or you don’t, and if you don’t just “see” that, the rest of the foundation falls apart. But I would say, it’s not that I completely ignore some of the ideas of what makes us a successful society, more that I think that we should look for those values outside of maybe visible differences (and I am 100% against an idea of the ends justify the means that suggest that womanizing philanderers like Musk and Trump are the way to spread family values around America)
But even her new found sage Elon Musk is famous for saying “Physics is the law, everything else is just a recommendation”. Even Musk’s maximally truth seeking AI often thinks he’s a cad.
So I guess the main thrust of my criticism would be just that, sure, engineers should spend their time building things in the maximally truthful space of physics, but GTFO when trying to apply those same methods to social science or morality.