"Is Sex Binary": The Upcoming Online (and Live) Debate at MIT on April 17, 7 p.m. U.S. Eastern (9 a.m., Australian Eastern)
One of my vices is that I get distracted easily. Today, I meant to do some work on my taxes and on publicity for the MIT Free Speech Alliance debate on “Is Sex Binary?” next Wednesday night 7-8:30 pm Eastern time, live on campus but also livestreamed at
I was feeling very guilty, but now that I’ve almost inadvertently done some publicity this way, I feel better. Tune in and watch. It will be a real debate—all four debaters and the moderator are eminently googleable. Aaron Kimberly has a fascinating background as a Canadian farm boy or farm girl or both, it’s hard to decide what to say, and Holly Lawford-Smith is from New Zealand and teaches in Australia, so she probably has a pleasant accent for if you get bored with the substance of the debate. What MFSA is trying to do at MIT is to model how to conduct discussions on hot topics between people of opposing views, as we have done in our past two debates on “Is STEM inherently racist?” and “Should Academic DEI programs be abolished?” I note that this will be our first debate without an acronym, a good sign for civilized discourse.
Now that this has gotten so long, I think I’ll separate it from the distraction I mentioned at the start, Lisa Cook, and publish that as a separate Substack. Subscribers, I’m going to have three Substacks in one week, but I promise I won’t overload you like this again. It’s just that all three are topical.
(i) This one is about the debate next week.
(ii) Tomorrow, I’ll finish Part II of “Trebuchet Math and Modelling Global Warming,” since I need to get that ready to teach my 7th graders on Friday.
(iii) Within a few hours of the time I write this today I’ll publish a Substack on the credentials of Lisa Cook, a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, in response to Chris Rufo and Luke Rosiak’s Substack of earlier today that got me distracted into looking into her background.
Trouble at the Fed
An investigation into Federal Reserve governor Lisa D. Cook’s academic record raises questions.
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