[mark-t]

Read the notes: http://www.paulgraham.com/saynotes.html

[15] By this I mean you'd have to become a professional controversialist, not that Noam Chomsky's opinions = what you can't say. If you actually said the things you can't say, you'd shock conservatives and liberals about equally-- just as, if you went back to Victorian England in a time machine, your ideas would shock Whigs and Tories about equally.

[miked]

Well, I stupidly did not follow the link to the notes, and hence missed that. In my defense, I think pg would have done better to pick a different example. The context, indeed the whole essay, is about "what you can't say". For the reasons stated, Chomsky either says things that a lot of people in the world agree with or things that are horrific (praise of Hezbollah). Neither of these puts me in mind of Galileo.

My suggestion to pg: use George Orwell as an example.

Thanks for the catch, in any case.