alt Hacker NewsOf course, but I am wondering if you wrote a brilliant essay arguing for a viewpoint that seems to go against the one underlying the selection of questions here, would it matter?
My guess is no, it wouldn’t. These questions all have pretty strong assumptions behind them, and so my guess is that they’re looking for people who fundamentally have the same opinions but are capable of communicating them well. And not someone that has different opinions, even if they communicate them well.
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There isn't an "underlying selection of the questions" here, they're open ended, vague and look like they're chosen by a disconnected academic trying to be topical.
They're looking for a certain type of person, but we can't figure out who that is from the questions. We could probably do some cold reading just from knowing that it'll be a bunch of academics doing the assessing and they do tend to see the world in a certain way but there isn't anything to glean from the paper.
The examiners would delight in you entertaining them. It’s fine to argue anything, wilfully misinterpret the question or say outlandish things. All that matters is you give the examiner a window into your mind showing it to be clever and articulate and rounded?