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The most stunning thing for me is that cancel-culture enjoyers read the Parable of the Lightning and then just go on like they didn't just read someone talking about how they almost definitely believe in societally-unapproved wrongthink. He's defending hiding your true views in order to escape social censure and talking about the consequences of it, but the people providing that censure are so unperceptive that they don't even see someone practically bragging about it openly.
It's interesting, because the parable of the lightning could be taken in two ways:
"I am currently pretending not to be a crimethinker so as to cover my ass, but I'm not going to tell you which opinions of mine are crimethink." (Your interpretation.)
"I have already shown my power level by explicitly decrying all of the tenets of Ingsoc I disagree with - but it's lamentable that others in a more precarious social situation than me must continue to pretend not to be crimethinkers."
At the time of writing, Scott had already slaughtered a lot of the sacred cows of wokeness/progressivism/liberalism: arguing that hysteria around Trump was unfounded, that there are real differences between male and female brains which impact upon career choices, that false rape accusations are real and potentially life-destroying, that incels deserve our sympathy and some of their grievances are perfectly legitimate, that a lot of modern feminism is just socially-sanctioned bullying of low-status men. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that a man brave enough to slaughter these sacred cows has already slaughtered all of the sacred cows that he's ever going to.
But Scott has not publicly come out in favor of HBD, which we know from his leaked e-mail he believes. That's a huge heresy, the kind of thing you get fired for.
says "has not archived that URL"
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You're absolutely right. My Straussian reading of "Kolmogorov" is that he's hinting at endorsing HBD (and possibly copping to a great deal more scepticism on the trans issue then he generally lets on) without coming out and saying so explicitly. He later came a lot closer to outright saying he endorses HBD in his review of The Cult of Smart.
But I wouldn't blame someone familiar with Scott's writing up to that point for interpreting "Kolmogorov" to mean "I've already come out and planted my flags in the sand, it's just a shame that so many other intelligent, well-meaning people can't do so for fear of social censure or cancellation".
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I think he's slaughtering cattle at a lower rate than he did before, especially since the NYT doxxing and the opening of the Substack.
Still occasionally committing a bit of crimethink, but most of the fire has been directed at less contentious (if important) targets like the FDA.
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