I agree that taking the Kolmogorov option is justifiable in direct proportion to the risk of your situation and the difficulty of causing change. Appealing to it in the US today is vastly less convincing than appealing to it in the USSR of the 50s and 60s.

That said, I'd also note that writing an article like this inherently means not taking the Kolmogorov option. This is a clear case of "do it, don't say it" - Kolmogorov himself would have been risking his life by publishing a piece like this, since it raises an air of "I might have unacceptable views I'm not announcing".

(I'm not sure where the Trump bit comes in here - it seems like Aaronson's one mention of him is in exactly the opposite direction of yours.)

Here are three unspeakable truths for the United States. Bringing them up is a risk: there is almost no chance for calm, composed conversation.

1. The US Federal Government is not held accountable to the Constitution any more.

2. Income inequality is back to 1930's levels. Beside US Federal Government solutions, across-the-aisle solutions are attacked by corporations and large news sources.

3. Belief systems, their movements and organizations, that unite the populace against the US Federal Government are attacked by corporations and large news sources.

I like your optimism. The US has legs. Though we're crippled, we're not out of the race.

I like to engage in quiet, one-on-one conversations and subtly advocate for better solutions. I think Kolmogorov was a master at that.

Individual income inequality has been approximately flat for the last 50 years. The variety of income inequality that has increased is household inequality, but that's mostly driven by social changes as that metric is hugely sensitive to the nature and size of households. ( http://www.aei.org/publication/sorry-krugman-piketty-and-sti... )

Your #3 has always been true but is arguably less so today than in past given the continuing fragmentation and loss of authority of large news sources.

If your #1 is supposed to represent a change from some golden earlier era...which era are you thinking of, exactly?

I'm pretty sure you can find all of those positions in national newspapers today. You can also openly advocate for them at a lot of workplaces without significant backlash.

"People feel strongly and argue with you" is a vastly different thing than the Kolmogorov situation. (Which, again, was "you're punished harshly and no debate happens at all".)

people post this stuff all the time, you should stop crying about persecution.

The author has spoken against Trump vehemently on multiple occasions. I'm pretty sure the unspeakable opinions referred to in this post aren't Trump related.

I think your examples show that the mob is fickle, and that one's audience has a lot to do with how one is received, not that we enjoy very much practical freedom of speech.

Corporatiosn are dictatorships without freedom of speech. In the case of Academics what you say is true. But not really in the case of Google employees.