The consistent mistake people did last years, including those on HN was to pretend to themselves that odious people are "just joking" and "totally not serious". Again and again. Starting with 4chan and 8chan that were just a trolls and no one was ever nazi, until nazi became normalized, the top government and leadership of a major party.
No one was sexist ever, they were just joking and all feminists were stupid not understanding that, until their quite sexist messages got released by inside a pack of messages to known abuser. This is literally the case of Larry Summers.
And you want to play that game again, with literally the same person. Of course no one believes it, it is not being sophisticated, you are asking people to pretend they are stupid. Nothing in Summers career suggests he would sarcastic out of care for Africa or environment. That is not what his work was, at all.
No one was sexist ever, they were just joking and all feminists were stupid not understanding that, until their quite sexist messages got released by inside a pack of messages to known abuser. This is literally the case of Larry Summers.
And you want to play that game again, with literally the same person. Of course no one believes it, it is not being sophisticated, you are asking people to pretend they are stupid. Nothing in Summers career suggests he would sarcastic out of care for Africa or environment. That is not what his work was, at all.