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My first interactions with a trans person (or at least someone who I knew had transitioned) was as an audience member to a speech they were giving. I wasn't there to listen to a trans person speak, I was there to hear from Deirdre McCloskey a famous economist that transitioned in 1995. The fact that she had once been a man was an interesting side fact about her. It wasn't what defined her. The same could probably be said of Caitlyn Jenner. I also had a few colleagues that transitioned. It was generally not something we ever talked about. I tried not to make a big deal of it, and they didn't either. I have parts of me that are culturally conservative. But those parts of me mostly say to shut up about sexual topics and health issues, especially in professional settings. Something can be a huge cultural issue, political disagreement, and interpersonal dream/nightmare. But it need not impact the professional workplace at all.
I do agree with you about having a real worry about the opportunity costs of smart people. I see it with myself all the time. I wrote a semi-popular online web serial. I mostly stopped because I have kids and because I liked spending my time writing to argue politics on themotte more. I very selfishly chose a path that benefits far fewer people. I work a salaried non-profit job that has me working very low hours, but also pays about 40% under market price for my labor (or maybe I'm accurately priced given how much I work). Not everyone is in their optimal job, for whatever way you want to define "optimal". Personal happiness / pay / comparative advantage / benefit to the world / etc.
It does leave exploitable holes in the market. One of those holes is that a bunch of space and engineering nerds thought we should be doing more to establish a human space presence. Elon Musk gathered these people into space X and got cheap high quality engineering talent.
I read a bit about this Deirdre on the wikipedia page, and saw the failed cancellation campaign in 2003. I mean, probably it is true that this is not what defined her, but still I can see the germs of cancel culture in it.
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