+This post has been incredibly emotionally difficult to write, because intellectual discourse _shouldn't_ be personal _or_ political. It's easy to write posts of the form, "Smith argues that X, but actually, not-X, because ..." and it doesn't hurt because it's not about Smith or the social pressures acting on her, it's about the balance of evidence and structure of the arguments for and against X. It's only when argument _fails_ and yet you [still have Something to Protect](/2019/Jul/the-source-of-our-power/), that your last recourse is to jump to the meta level and say,
+
+------
+
+[Dark Side Epistemology]
+
+Is this the hill _he_ wants to die on?
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