In this post JulianMorrison was, at least partially, trying to inform you that there is in fact something like a Bayesian Conspiracy within the Social Sciences—that there are social truths that are understood from within the discipline (or at least, from within parts of the discipline) that can’t be discussed with outsiders, because non-rational people will use the knowledge in ways with a highly negative net utility.
I don’t think I’d identify the activist subculture with the social sciences, at least in the case JulianMorrison was talking about. If there’s an academic community whose members publish relatively unfiltered research within their fields but don’t usually talk to the public unless they are also activists, and also an activist community whose members are much more interested in spreading the word but aren’t always too interested in spreading up-to-date science (charitably, because they believe some avenues of research to be suffering from bias or otherwise suspect), then we get the same results without having to invoke a conspiracy. This also has the advantage of explaining why it’s possible to read about ostensibly forbidden social truths by, e.g., querying the right Wikipedia page.
Whether this accurately models any particular controversial subject is probably best left as an exercise.
I don’t think I’d identify the activist subculture with the social sciences, at least in the case JulianMorrison was talking about. If there’s an academic community whose members publish relatively unfiltered research within their fields but don’t usually talk to the public unless they are also activists, and also an activist community whose members are much more interested in spreading the word but aren’t always too interested in spreading up-to-date science (charitably, because they believe some avenues of research to be suffering from bias or otherwise suspect), then we get the same results without having to invoke a conspiracy. This also has the advantage of explaining why it’s possible to read about ostensibly forbidden social truths by, e.g., querying the right Wikipedia page.
Whether this accurately models any particular controversial subject is probably best left as an exercise.