[stickfigure]

OP's take seems to be unfairly critical. I wasn't at the MIT or Georgia Tech lectures (Gene Ray spoke once at each) but it sounds like the audience was pretty respectful, all things considered. He was given uninterrupted time to explain his ideas, then question and answer. No shouting.

Ray didn't convince anyone. No surprise. But he apparently wrote to someone "They treated me like Einstein" so it can't have been too unpleasant.

A quote from the Georgia Tech student paper, from a participant: "I’m glad we live in a society where people like Gene Ray are not locked up and beaten, but instead respected in their own way."

Honestly it sounds like the best possible case for someone with seriously nutty ideas (and possibly some mental illness). Bit of a modern day Emperor Norton. The rationalists did ok here.

[YeGoblynQueenne]

I'm not even sure it was the rationalists, just ordinary MIT/Georgia Tech students. But my understanding (I wasn't there obviously) is like you say that Gene Ray was not invited to speak so he could be easily humiliated by people larping the superior intellects, but instead treated with curiosity and respect even if it was clear like you say that his ideas were a little bit mad. Tbh I think people were just fascinated to find someone with such outlandish ideas who was so entirely caught up with their own creation.

So I think the author is maybe overreacting in that one. The rest, what he says about "rationalists" going after flat earthers and intelligent designers etc with a list of logical fallacies at hand, for sport, that's very true.