Ali AbdulKarim

“Instead of science, Social Justice scholarship advocates for “other ways of knowing,” derived from Theoretical interpretations of deeply felt lived experience. It argues that reason and evidence-based knowledge are unfairly favored over tradition, folklore, interpretation, and emotion because of the power imbalances baked into them. Without the slightest awareness of the racist and sexist implications, Theory views evidence and reason to be the cultural property of white Western men.”
― Helen Pluckrose, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everybody

“Cryptocurrency, which was supposedly created as a solution to the myriad failures of our regulated financial system laid bare during the subprime crisis, had effectively reproduced and even amplified the same dynamics, leading to a similar implosion. Thankfully for the broader public, it had all happened on a smaller scale and the real banks were not involved (despite the crypto industry’s efforts to the contrary). But once again, it was regular people who were left holding the bag.”
― Ben McKenzie, Easy Money: Cryptocurrency, Casino Capitalism, and the Golden Age of Fraud

“I don’t regret anything I’ve ever done in life, any choice that I’ve made. But I’m consumed with regret for the things I didn’t do, the choices I didn’t make, the things I didn’t say. We spend so much time being afraid of failure, afraid of rejection. But regret is the thing we should fear most. Failure is an answer. Rejection is an answer. Regret is an eternal question you will never have the answer to. “What if…” “If only…” “I wonder what would have…” You will never, never know, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days.”
― Trevor Noah, Born a Crime: Stories From a South African Childhood

“Intersectional Theory provided an entirely new, “increasingly sophisticated” way to understand power dynamics in society, allowing them to repurpose their failing theoretical models into something more diffuse and less falsifiable.23 We often observe this kind of shift to a more “sophisticated” and nebulous model when people are highly personally and ideologically committed to a theoretical approach that is clearly failing. This phenomenon was first described by Leon Festinger, in his study of UFO cults, and led to the development of the concept of cognitive dissonance.24 Festinger observed that highly committed cultists did not abandon their beliefs when the predictions of the cult failed to manifest—when the UFO never came. Instead, cultists resolved this undeniable contradiction by claiming the event had occurred, but in some unfalsifiable way (specifically, they claimed God decided to spare the planet as a result of the faith of the cultists).”
― Helen Pluckrose, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity - And Why this Harms Everybody