By a lazy Mathew Goldstein asking DeepSeek “Write chapter 7 of Gulliver's Travels to satirize the effect of DEI on science today.״ Here is the response from DeepSeek:
Of course. Here is a chapter written in the style of Jonathan Swift, detailing Gulliver's voyage to the Grand Academy of Lagado's new satellite campus, satirizing the modern application of DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) principles on scientific inquiry.
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### **A Voyage to Laputa, Balnibarbi, Glubbdubdrib, Luggnagg, and Japan**
### **CHAPTER VII**
_The Author’s great Disappointment at the Grand Academy’s New Campus. A detailed Account of the Institute for Harmonious Scientifical Endeavour, its Methods, and its curious Effects upon the Nation._
My stay in Lagado, though it had filled my head with a great many astonishing and ridiculous schemes, had not quenched my thirst for knowledge. I was informed by Lord Munodi, that ever-patient beacon of sense in that sea of folly, that the Projectors, not content with the ruin they had wrought upon the main Academy, had established a new and more modern institution upon the outskirts of the city. It was called, with the grandiloquence typical of the place, *The Institute for Harmonious Scientifical Endeavour*.
“They have taken the noble, if often misguided, pursuit of knowledge,” said Munodi, with a heavy sigh, “and subjugated it entirely to a new and perplexing theology. They worship not at the altar of Truth, but at the twin idols of Lived Experience and Proportional Representation.”
My curiosity, as ever, was my undoing. I obtained letters of introduction and presented myself at the Institute’s gates, which were not of iron or wood, but constructed of a soft, yielding material painted in a great multitude of colours, so that none who pushed against them would ever feel a sharp resistance.
I was received by the Institute’s Vice-Provisor, a man whose countenance was a permanent mask of earnest concern, named Dr. Lorbulgrud. He spoke not in sentences, but in a strange, incantatory jargon, peppered with phrases like “paradigm of inclusivity,” “decolonizing methodologies,” and “equitable outcomes.” I confess I understood barely one word in three, but I nodded with a feigned sagacity, lest I be thought a bigot.
“Here at the Institute,” he proclaimed, leading me into a vast courtyard, “we have moved beyond the oppressive, linear, and frankly *white* conception of so-called ‘objective reality.’ We recognise that all knowledge is situated within a cultural and identity-based context, and that to privilege one context over another is a form of epistemological violence.”
The first laboratory we entered was dedicated to the science of Mathematics. I expected to see men calculating the motions of the stars or the strength of materials, but instead I found a committee in deep, sombre deliberation over a chalkboard.
“What is the subject of their debate?” I asked.
“A matter of grave import,” whispered Dr. Lorbulgrud. “We are reassessing the value of Pi.”
“Reassessing?” I inquired. “Has a more precise calculation been found?”
“Precision is not the goal,” he corrected me, a pained smile upon his lips. “The goal is equity. The current value of Pi, approximately 3.14159, is intolerably Eurocentric. It is a rigid, immutable number, a tool of the patriarchal hegemony used to exclude those whose cultural mathematical traditions are more fluid or intuitive. This committee is devising a range of acceptable values for Pi, from which a mathematician may choose the one that best affirms their identity and cultural background. We believe this will encourage a far greater diversity of persons to feel welcome in the field of geometry.”
I saw one projector, with great excitement, propose a value of ‘3’ for its elegant simplicity and accessibility, while another argued passionately for ‘4’, as it made the squares of buildings far roomier and more inclusive.
Next, we proceeded to the Department of Natural Philosophy. A great experiment was underway concerning the law of gravitational attraction. A learned man, who I was told was the Province’s foremost authority on falling apples, was being sternly questioned by a panel of reviewers.
“Your theory,” intoned a severe-looking woman, “that all bodies are attracted to each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses, is deeply problematic.”
“How so, Madam?” stammered the philosopher.
“It is inherently hierarchical! You posit that a larger mass exerts a *greater* influence than a smaller one. This reinforces harmful power dynamics and justifies the oppression of the small by the large. We cannot, in good conscience, fund research that provides a scientific basis for tyranny. Furthermore, your use of the term ‘attraction’ is heteronormative and assumes a universal desire. Have you considered bodies that may wish to repel one another?”
The philosopher was instructed to return to his calculations and ensure his new theory of gravity promoted equity, perhaps by having all objects fall upwards, thereby liberating them from the oppressive downward pull of the Earth, which they deemed a symbol of colonialist imposition.
The pinnacle of this madness was found in the Hall of Medical Practice. Here, the aspiring physicians were not examined on their knowledge of anatomy or humours, but on their adherence to a new doctrine. I witnessed the final examination of a young candidate.
“A patient presents with a fever and a pustulent swelling,” posed the examiner. “What is your course of treatment?”
The candidate replied, “I should first lance the swelling to release the foul humours, then administer a draft of willow-bark tea to reduce the fever.”
A gasp echoed through the hall. The examiners shook their heads in dismay.
“Your answer,” the chief examiner declared, “is shockingly deficient. You have completely ignored the patient’s identity. What is the patient’s race? Their gender? Their socioeconomic status? Your one-size-fits-all approach is a relic of a brutal, colonialist medicine. The correct answer is to first determine if lancing the swelling aligns with the patient’s cultural traditions regarding bodily integrity, and to ensure that the willow bark was sourced from a community that has been historically marginalized in the field of botany. The cure is not important; it is the *process* that must be equitable.”
The candidate failed his examination, and a great cheer went up for a young woman who proposed treating the fever with affirming discourse and by blaming the illness on societal constructs of health.
I made my excuses to Dr. Lorbulgrud, my stomach churning with a mixture of mirth and horror. I sought out Lord Munodi at his estate, where the apples grew in accordance with the old, tyrannical laws of gravity, and the buildings stood at right angles thanks to the oppressive value of Pi.
“Well, Gulliver,” he said, offering me a glass of wholesome wine, “what think you of our new light of reason?”
“My Lord,” I cried, “I think the whole nation is mad! They are building a tower of knowledge without foundation, without brick, without mortar! They care not if it stands or falls, so long as every particle of dust from its construction is distributed in a manner they deem fair.”
“You have perceived the heart of it,” he replied grimly. “The fields go unplanted, for the agricultural projectors insist the sun’s energy is distributed unequally and must be petitioned to shine more upon shaded valleys. The bridges collapse, for the engineers must use a variety of building materials in exact proportion to their prevalence in the earth’s crust, whether they bear weight or not. We are a society un-learning how to function, all in the service of a theory that feels very virtuous to discuss, but produces nothing but hunger, ruin, and confusion. They have ceased to ask ‘Is it true?’ and ask only ‘Does it feel fair to the committee?’ It is a grand and noble sentiment, applied with the delicacy of a mallet to a watchmaker’s glass.”
I took my leave of Lagado soon after, a profound melancholy upon me. For I saw that a people who deliberately blind themselves to the nature of a rock, lest its hardness offend them, or who deny the flow of a river, lest its direction seem discriminatory, are doomed not merely to stagnation, but to a swift and certain decay. They had traded the difficult, often flawed, but necessary pursuit of truth for the comfortable, unanimous certainty of a pleasing fiction. And in so doing, they had made themselves not enlightened, but utterly and completely helpless.