[HN Gopher] The Origins of Wokeness
___________________________________________________________________
The Origins of Wokeness
Author : crbelaus
Score : 452 points
Date : 2025-01-13 11:21 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (paulgraham.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (paulgraham.com)
| Festro wrote:
| People have always been performative about social justice, it's
| not a new phenomenon. Perhaps the author is just more aware of it
| now, or modern technology has pushed it deeper into our lives,
| but it's not new.
|
| And it shouldn't detract from the justice itself. People are
| obssessed with talking about how bad the performative nature is,
| when they should ignore that aspect and just focus on the issue.
| If they care about it.
|
| Annoyed people are whining about civil rights? Okay? Don't whine
| about it yourself maybe? Now you're just being performative about
| performative people.
|
| Perhaps the best way to lower the number of performative
| individuals is to... you know... resolve their issues?
| rhelz wrote:
| // Now you're just being performative about performative
| people. //
|
| Nice ricochet.
|
| I'm grateful to Paul Graham for actually giving a definition of
| "woke". Really, this is the first anti-woke essay I've seen
| which actually tells us exactly what the author is complaining
| about.
|
| And it makes it rather abundantly clear _why_ nobody else has
| given a definition of exactly what the author is complaining
| about.
| _bee_hive_ wrote:
| Me as well, having a definition is useful when trying to
| understand someone's perspective and I applaud him for that.
|
| It seems that his opposition is with SJW Puritanisms and I
| agree with him on that point.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _People have always been performative about social justice,
| it 's not a new phenomenon_
|
| People have always done lots of things. The degree, intensity,
| and manner with which they do them varies and matters.
|
| > _And it shouldn 't detract from the justice itself. People
| are obssessed with talking about how bad the performative
| nature is, when they should ignore that aspect and just focus
| on the issue_
|
| They could be already focusing on the issue. Or they could be
| ignoring it. That's their decision. Perhaps they have problems
| of their own to tackle first. Nobody has to be an activist
| about some cause just because another wants them to.
|
| The problem with performative justice is that (when the
| performative types get enough power) its bizarre demands and
| rituals are imposed onto and everybody else, with little
| recourse.
|
| Another problem is that the performative justice diverts
| resources to tackle the performative insignificant or
| detrimental aspects instead of the real issue.
|
| > _Annoyed people are whining about civil rights? Okay? Don 't
| whine about it yourself maybe?_
|
| Wouldn't solve the issues described in the article caused by
| performative justice, from stiffling academic discussion, to
| creating an outrage factory that diverts the press from its
| mission and polarises society to a detrimental effect.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| > People are obssessed with talking about how bad the
| performative nature is, when they should ignore that aspect and
| just focus on the issue.
|
| You can do both: focus on fixing performative "justice" in
| order to fix the issue. Particularly the part that is spinning
| your arguments and using them for injustice, making them appear
| weaker.
|
| There's a strategy: support flawed people on your team, because
| they'll help your team overall. And sometimes this is good,
| even necessary, e.g. voting for the less-bad candidate in an
| election. But sometimes there are teammates who are counter-
| productive even for their own goals. You don't even have to
| eject these people, but you have to correct them, or they'll
| make your team worse than if they didn't exist.
|
| When I hear conservative arguments, they rarely if ever target
| the points I think are reasonable and obvious. They target
| points that I think aren't worth defending (e.g. "illegal
| immigrant who commit armed robbery not deported"), and points
| that I think are worth defending but require nuance (which can
| be defended with some form of "you're correct, _although_... "
| to reveal and protect the reasonable part). Conservatives win
| voters by targeting the weakest points, which just about anyone
| previously uninformed would side against; "performative
| justice" creates most of these points, and attacks against
| attacks against performative justice protect them.
|
| It's like a bottleneck or unstable pillar in a building. You
| don't want to divert everyone to fixing it, because the overall
| pipeline or building is the ultimate priority, but it has to be
| addressed. Likewise, fixing the issue is still the ultimate
| priority, and I don't expect everyone to address performative
| justice, but somebody has to do it.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| > Annoyed people are whining about civil rights?
|
| Nobody is annoyed people are whining about civil rights. We are
| annoyed that people a) are whining about non-issues that they
| have gone out of their way to be offended by, and b) are
| demanding that the rest of us change the world based on their
| blown out of proportion views.
| rhelz wrote:
| From the article: "Twitter, which was arguably the hub of
| wokeness, was bought by Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and
| he seems to have succeeded -- and not, incidentally, by censoring
| left-wing users the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones,
| but without censoring either. [14]"
|
| Then follow to the footnote: "[14] Elon did something else that
| tilted Twitter rightward though: he gave more visibility to
| paying users."
|
| This is puzzling to me because: if you give _more_ visibility to
| one group of people 's speech, that means you are giving _less_
| visibility to another group of people 's speech. Which is just
| another way of saying you are censoring their speech.
|
| Again, the author asks: "...is there a way to prevent any similar
| outbreak of aggressively performative moralism in the future?"
| But preventing somebody from expressing their moral values again
| is censorship.
|
| No matter what kind of media policies there are, the fact that
| there is limited bandwidth means that some views are going to be
| emphasized, and other views are going to be suppressed.
| nomilk wrote:
| You raise good points. I'm optimistic because i think the
| quieting of some voices (while bad) is much better than their
| complete silencing, as has happened through deplatforming,
| shadow banning, and even White House requests in the past.
|
| I also think the gruellingly slow death of legacy media and
| rise of bluesky and X (and mastodon) is a net positive for
| society, if only for the reason that ~tweets can be immediately
| and transparently rebutted, whereas brainwashing 'news'
| programs can't.
| astine wrote:
| > I also think the gruellingly slow death of legacy media and
| rise of bluesky and X (and mastodon) is a net positive for
| society, if only for the reason that ~tweets can be
| immediately and transparently rebutted, whereas brainwashing
| 'news' programs can't.
|
| The problem with this logic is that for the most part, new
| media isn't replacing legacy media; it's simply placing new
| layer of filtering in front of it. The vast majority of
| people sharing information on these platforms aren't
| journalists doing their own research. Instead, they're
| getting their information from journalists and just applying
| their own filtering and spin. "Rebuting" usually just
| involves linking to different news sources. You were always
| better just reading the legacy media in the first place.
| rsolva wrote:
| Elon censored me for mentioning my Mastodon handle on Twitter.
| Me and anyone else who did the same.
| croisillon wrote:
| i guess pg knows one thing about it ;)
| https://fortune.com/2022/12/18/twitter-suspends-paul-
| graham-...
| bachmeier wrote:
| Was going to say the same thing. I guess some people are
| just firm in their beliefs. It's only data if it supports
| what you were otherwise going to say, or something like
| that.
| djur wrote:
| The antiwoke crusaders are just as intent on moralizing and
| language policing as the worst of their opponents, and in
| places like Florida they're actively implementing limitations
| on speech and academic inquiry. To the extent that Graham and
| his fellow travelers in tech believe in freedom of expression,
| they've picked dangerous allies.
| int_19h wrote:
| Much like "woke" isn't really a single coherent entity,
| neither is "antiwoke". E.g. Bill Maher is notoriously anti-
| woke, but I haven't heard him demanding language policing.
| The part of it that does is the same people who have always
| done it, i.e. social conservatives - for whom it is literally
| a part of their platform and has always been that.
| djur wrote:
| Hard not to interpret this:
|
| "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured
| too far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been
| permanently damaged by it."
|
| as an endorsement of the social conservative elements of
| "antiwoke".
| mywittyname wrote:
| The past few years has shown us who the tech titans really
| are. We only had an inkling before, but now they don't have
| any reason to maintain a facade.
|
| They believe in oligarchy so long as they are the oligarchs.
| They believe in authoritarianism so long as they are the
| authorities. They believe in censorship so long as they are
| the censors.
|
| And now that they've amassed power that will be unopposed for
| the foreseeable future, there's no reason to pretend their
| goals are elsewhere. A single party system will cause them
| issues like Chin has, America has 30-50 years to get to that
| point and presumably they all plan on emerging as the Supreme
| Leader when that day comes - or at least landing in the inner
| circle.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Censoring is suppressing speech based on it's _content_.
|
| Giving less visibility to non paying users is definitely not
| that!
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| Perhaps the more accurate term is "suppressing" - you can do
| this directly or by crowding out or deprioritizing specific
| content based on many attributes. Content is both literal and
| second-order (like paid vs. unpaid)
| DonHopkins wrote:
| I wish twitter would use LLMs to automatically censor people
| who abuse apostrophes. As long as they're promoting and
| appealing to Nazis, throw the Grammar Nazis a bone!
| Arainach wrote:
| Society, in its grand equality, gives rich and poor alike the
| ability to spend their money on billboards and full page ads.
|
| This is ignoring all of the actual algorithm changes and
| Elon-induced censorship of specific topics on Twitter that
| make Paul's point just flat-out wrong, of course.
| Detrytus wrote:
| I'm sorry, but "wokeness" until recently was on the agenda
| of multi-billion dollars companies such as Google, Meta,
| Apple and the rest of Fortune 500. Implying that left-
| leaning people can't afford to pay for their Twitter/X
| profiles is laughable.
| thrance wrote:
| Pretty much any billionaire I can name has taken an
| "anti-woke" stance: Musk, Trump, Thiel, Graham,
| Zuckerberg... Money is definitely not on the side of the
| "woke", whoever they may be.
| jandrese wrote:
| > From the article: "Twitter, which was arguably the hub of
| wokeness, was bought by Elon Musk in order to neutralize it,
| and he seems to have succeeded -- and not, incidentally, by
| censoring left-wing users the way Twitter used to censor right-
| wing ones, but without censoring either. [14]"
|
| As has been demonstrated time and time again, especially on the
| Internet, unmoderated discussion boards do not scale. Trolls
| can naturally push out the reasonable people by increasing the
| noise level. Once the number of users exceeds some small
| threshold it is basically a guarantee that trolls will move in.
| Shitposting is cheap, easy, and the people who do it have all
| the time in the world. If you don't moderate the board will
| become useless for substantive discussion.
|
| I mean this was amply demonstrated back in the Usenet era.
| Nothing has fundamentally change with human psyche since then,
| so the rule still holds true. Twitter/X is just the lastest
| example.
|
| You've hit the nail on the head here. If you let the trolls in
| they will suck all of the air out of the room.
| jiriknesl wrote:
| Twitter is not unmoderated.
|
| I don't know how many people I muted, banned, or how many
| times I clicked that I don't want to see something. Over
| time, Twitter gets better.
|
| This being said, I prefer doing my moderation myself instead
| of having somebody I extremely disagree with (former Twitter
| employees) to do this for me.
| mellosouls wrote:
| _if you give more visibility to one group of people 's speech,
| that means you are giving less visibility to another group of
| people's speech. Which is just another way of saying you are
| censoring their speech._
|
| Not at all - the difference here is _choice_. You can choose to
| pay or not to pay. And if you don 't pay you are still seen.
|
| There was no choice wrt visibility under the old regime,
| WrongSpeak was censored - you couldn't pay to be heard.
|
| Now that doesn't mean the current situation is optimal, but it
| at least allows for the possibility of diversity of opinion.
| Left and Right can both choose to pay.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > at least allows for the possibility of diversity of
| opinion. Left and Right can both choose to pay.
|
| This has multiple issues.
|
| The older set up was not there to promote visibility but to
| provide a layer of authentification, most blue ticks were
| brands and recognisable people. Now its mostly scams,
| allowing anyone, especially potentially malicious actors, to
| don the mask of credibility is not "allowing the possibility
| of diversity of opinion" is allowing the fox in the hen
| house.
|
| Secondly, if you imagine the goals of right wing people to
| maintain current power structures, and the left to disrupt
| them, then the ability to pay is already corrupted due to the
| current power structure being supremely lobsided. Aka those
| with all the money are effectively the only ones who can pay.
| (In law this is called 'right without a remedy', its when you
| technically have a right on paper but could never actually
| exercise it)
|
| This whole situation also enables a problem we already know
| exists which are state actors. Russia was part of a disinfo
| campaign through FB tools in 2016 through cambridge
| analytica, and used bots in twitter in 2016 and 2020 through
| multiple state sponsored bot farms. Allowing that kind of
| state warfare to be amplified by spending money is really
| really poor choice from a platform prespective. Without those
| tools, organic growth is harder to achieve and getting around
| bot detection tools means a part of the infra would be caught
| before it caused damage (even under those circumstances,
| there was plenty of damage done). Removing all guardrails is
| a frankly indefensible choice in terms of public safety
| mellosouls wrote:
| The financial barrier is an excellent guardrail against
| bots and drivel, including those that are state-sponsored
| though I agree the latter will have more power to counter,
| but it will certainly act as a drag.
|
| I don't see how you get to the idea that you can only pay
| for X if you are in some kind of financial elite, it's just
| normal subscription.
|
| "Verification" is all well and good for the mainstream but
| pretty meaningless for niche and new voices; and we saw the
| consequences of unaccountable moderation for free speech by
| those doing the verification.
| plagiarist wrote:
| Weren't a number of the accounts that Elon reinstated just
| overt white supremacists? Like, yes, by "not censoring" white
| supremacy, there are some causally correlated effects for what
| the far right considers "wokeness" on that platform.
| throwaway63467 wrote:
| They simply realized reach is what you need to control, it
| doesn't matter if you can write the most brilliant political
| content if no one will see it due to the distribution algorithm
| penalizing it while each single one of Musks mostly idiotic
| tweets reaches hundreds of millions of users. Free speech is
| meaningless if it can't be heard by anyone.
| grahamj wrote:
| I guess you could call turning your social media site into a
| toilet, causing anyone with any sense of pride or morality to
| leave, neutralizing "wokeness".
| qaq wrote:
| If I go into for you instead of following it's extremely
| heavily skewed into conspiracy theory right. So to me it looks
| like they are boosting the reach of that content.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| (not arguing with you, but arguing with the statement that
| neither are being censored)
|
| There is definitely censorship on Twitter these days. A local
| strip club has its account suspended for "hate speech"
|
| https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/the-penthous...
|
| > Twitter took action after a photo of the club's latest
| marquee reading, "Forever neighbours, never neighbors" went
| viral.
|
| > The wording references president-elect Donald Trump's recent
| trolling of Canada by calling it America's 51st state, and uses
| the juxtaposition of the Canadian spelling of "neighbour"
| against the U.S. "neighbor" for political satire.
|
| > ... the free speech social media platform shut down the
| club's account saying "it violates the X Hateful Profile
| Policy."
| jahnu wrote:
| > but without censoring either
|
| PG should try using the term "cis" in a post.
| Symmetry wrote:
| I remember having a conversation with someone around a decade ago
| about whether "social justice warrior" pointed at anything real.
| My contention was that every popular moral system has its prigs
| and its fanatics - social justice no less than Christianity,
| environmentalism, socialism, etc, etc, etc.
| jandrese wrote:
| Every decade has its new leftest boogeyman for the right to
| complain about, same as always. Critical Race Theory, Political
| Correctness, Hippies, Civil Rights Crusaders, etc... Doesn't
| really matter, just so long as it is an "other" that can be
| ostracized as a group.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| The left is lucky in this regard because they get to complain
| about the same two boogeymen all the time: white males and
| Israel.
| jandrese wrote:
| Or to boil it down even more: the rich, particularly
| billionaires.
| nthingtohide wrote:
| I remember how a particular AI ethics reasearcher got Yann
| Lecun to leave Twitter. That's perfect definition of wokeness
| for me.
| carschno wrote:
| This seems a very long way to say: "I believe that 'woke' has
| become dogmatic."
| rapnie wrote:
| I did not read till the end yet, but "woke" is also a very
| successfully weaponised word for anyone to help push their
| ideology to further extremes, both left, right, not center.
| Woke is also a very good detractor from rich and poor
| discussions.
| esafak wrote:
| Merely saying that without explaining your reasoning is
| worthless.
| DanielBMarkham wrote:
| Related: People wonder why English has so many weird spellings.
| It's a complicated answer. The Vikings seem to show up way too
| often (grin). One of the reasons, though, is that several hundred
| years ago we all thought that Latin was the bees knees. The
| Greeks and Romans were the model. So took words that were
| perfectly-well phonetically-spelled and "fixed" them, returning
| them to some kind of bastardized form that was "better".
|
| For some words it didn't work -- people went back to the old
| ways. But for some it did.
|
| This chaotic priggish churning in society is not new, as pg
| points out. I love how language, manners, idioms, and cultures
| interact. It can be a force for good. It can also be extremely
| destructive, usually in tiny ways and over centuries.
|
| While I love these intricacies, I also always fall back on the
| definition of manners I was taught early on: good manners is how
| you act around people with poor manners. Add complexity as
| desired on top of that. The form of communication and behavior
| can never replace the actual meaning and effects of it. (There's
| a wonderful scene in "The Wire" where they only use the f-word.
| Would have worked just as well for their job to have used the
| n-word. 100 years ago, the n-word would have been fine and the
| f-word beyond the pale. Draw your lessons from that.)
|
| ADD: I always try to be polite and abide whatever traditions are
| in place in any social group. One thing I've noticed, though: the
| more people express their politics, their priggishness, their
| wokeness, etc -- the crappier they seem to be in their jobs. I
| don't know why. Perhaps it's because this is such as easy social
| crutch to lean on and gain social advantage that it becomes kind
| of a "communications drug". Scratch a loud prude or moralizer,
| you find a dullard or slacker. Conversely, people who produce
| usable advances in mankind tend to be jerks. I suspect this
| relationship has held up over centuries. cf Socrates and the
| Sophists, etc. (A good book among many along these lines is
| "Galileo's Middle Finger")
| nomilk wrote:
| The essay was posted about 60 minutes ago but must have been
| removed as that post is no longer discoverable through yc search.
| Weird.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| It got flagged to death. 50+ upvotes, 6 comments, but flag
| killed.
|
| I mean, I kind of understand: The discussion is going to turn
| into the kind of thing that HN tries to avoid. And yet,
| "moralities" driving things we can't talk about is the _point_
| of the essay, so it 's really ironic to have it flag killed
| here.
|
| Off topic: We used to be able to vouch for flagged posts, and
| we can't seem to do that any more. That means that flag killing
| is uncorrectable - if users decide that it's inappropriate,
| their only recourse is to email dang. That seems to me to be a
| step backward - let the user base correct the overreach of
| others in the user base.
| nomilk wrote:
| Your second paragraph is very well said. Made me chuckle but
| also lament.
| dang wrote:
| > We used to be able to vouch for flagged posts, and we can't
| seem to do that any more.
|
| That hasn't changed. Neither has any of the other logic
| around voting, flagging, or vouching.
|
| Vouching unkills [dead] posts. The current thread was dead,
| for example, and vouches rescued it. But a post can be
| [flagged] without being [dead]. See
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38918548 for a past
| explanation.
| archagon wrote:
| It should be possible for vouch-capable users to un-vouch
| in order to demote obvious rage-bait like this article. I'm
| sorry, but no constructive or intellectually curious
| discussion is possible here.
| dang wrote:
| Some is happening in this thread, so it's possible.
| dang wrote:
| (This comment was originally posted in
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683660 but we've merged
| that thread hither)
| hhackity wrote:
| A well-considered essay from PG. I thought this part, discussing
| a practical approach to dealing with disagreement of beliefs, was
| particularly insightful:
|
| > _Is there a simple, principled way to deal with wokeness? I
| think there is: to use the customs we already have for dealing
| with religion. Wokeness is effectively a religion, just with God
| replaced by protected classes. It 's not even the first religion
| of this kind; Marxism had a similar form, with God replaced by
| the masses. And we already have well-established customs for
| dealing with religion within organizations. You can express your
| own religious identity and explain your beliefs, but you can't
| call your coworkers infidels if they disagree, or try to ban them
| from saying things that contradict its doctrines, or insist that
| the organization adopt yours as its official religion._
|
| > _If we 're not sure what to do about any particular
| manifestation of wokeness, imagine we were dealing with some
| other religion, like Christianity. Should we have people within
| organizations whose jobs are to enforce woke orthodoxy? No,
| because we wouldn't have people whose jobs were to enforce
| Christian orthodoxy. Should we censor writers or scientists whose
| work contradicts woke doctrines? No, because we wouldn't do this
| to people whose work contradicted Christian teachings. Should job
| candidates be required to write DEI statements? Of course not;
| imagine an employer requiring proof of one's religious beliefs.
| Should students and employees have to participate in woke
| indoctrination sessions in which they're required to answer
| questions about their beliefs to ensure compliance? No, because
| we wouldn't dream of catechizing people in this way about their
| religion._
| jollyllama wrote:
| For better or worse, I don't think much practical possibility
| stems from this insight, and I wish PG had considered the
| possibility that the enforcement of some orthodoxy is
| unavoidable, and that the liberal environment he's describing
| is a vacuum into which some orthodoxy will inevitably insert
| itself.
| ordinaryradical wrote:
| This is great and the spiciest take buried within what you
| mention is the following (Christian) POV:
|
| People inherently need meaning to function and if a
| postmodern society insists that there is none, life is a
| _tabula rasa_ , and religion is basically the projection of
| the mind, then _people will begin building new religions and
| even "a-religious" religions to substitute for this lack._
|
| Personally, I disagree with the overall tack that leftism is
| always and inherently religious but the elements which _are_
| come from exactly the void you've described, just blown up to
| the level of society.
|
| Business leaders would be wise to set a vision for their
| companies that creates meaning and even, yes, acknowledges
| the transcendent in how they do that. People seem wired to
| _want_ this and pretending we are all too reasonable to need
| meaning isn't getting us anywhere.
| foobarian wrote:
| I guess pg might have power to implement this by dictating to
| his companies' HR leadership through the CEOs/boards. As for
| the rest of us...
| doom2 wrote:
| It's interesting that pg doesn't connect the type of thinking
| and indoctrination he sees in wokeness with similar types of
| thinking and indoctrination we currently see in followers of
| Trump. Crowds of people holding up "mass deportation now"
| signs, the governor of Texas ordering flags at full mast for
| the inauguration in the middle of a period of mourning [1],
| Republican politicians refusing to say whether or not Trump
| lost the 2020 election [2], Republican state legislatures
| trying to minimize mentions of LGBTQ topics in the classroom.
| Not only is much of it performative, as he complains about in
| the essay, but it has the feel of religion more than just a
| political movement. It almost seems like one could rewrite this
| essay with the focus on Trump instead of wokeness.
|
| This part in particular seems misguided if only because pg
| fails to recognize that "the next thing" is already here and
| wearing a red MAGA hat.
|
| > In fact there's an even more ambitious goal: is there a way
| to prevent any similar outbreak of aggressively performative
| moralism in the future -- not just a third outbreak political
| correctness, but the next thing like it? Because there will be
| a next thing.
|
| [1] https://gov.texas.gov/news/post/governor-abbott-orders-
| flags...
|
| [2] https://www.yahoo.com/news/republicans-still-t-trump-
| lost-17...
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Interesting. But that shouldn't surprise us. "Performative"
| means you're doing something to be seen, not because it's
| really "you". Well, when the power shifts, then who it's
| worth being performative for also shifts. I wonder if that's
| what we've been seeing in the shifts since November.
| Bostonian wrote:
| "And that's the real problem -- the performativeness, not the
| social justice."
|
| "Social justice" is inherently problematic, as explained in
| "Hayek: Social Justice Demands the Unequal Treatment of
| Individuals" https://fee.org/articles/hayek-social-justice-
| demands-the-un....
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Amen! Thanks for the link.
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| Telling that you believe this as Boston has to fix its deep
| seated racism.
| gedpeck wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _How does he know that the scale of the problem is what he
| thinks it is and not what "woke" people think it is?_
|
| Broadly speaking, there is no limit to racism that has ever
| been proposed by the far left. One can reasonably, trivially
| dismiss most infinities.
|
| > _The essay can be summed up in one sentence: There should be
| no meaningful consequences for men who engage is lewd behavior_
|
| There is something deeper here you're missing. Women can
| generally define lewd behaviour however they want; there is no
| similar official mechanism in the balance. A one-way
| institution like that will predictably build righteous backlash
| against itself. That backlash is partly performative and partly
| justified.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| I have absolutely no need to get anywhere near the line of
| what anyone would think of being lewd.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _have absolutely no need to get anywhere near the line of
| what anyone would think of being lewd_
|
| How is that relevant?
|
| The point is if one party can inconsequentially, to them,
| subjectively define lewdness and cause consequence to
| others through it, you will wind up with abuse and
| backlash. Whether it's lewdness or moral uprightness or
| loyalty to a flag is besides the point.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Are you really not capable of knowing what could be
| considered "lewd" and not go into that territory in
| polite company?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Are you really not capable of knowing what could be
| considered "lewd" and not go into that territory in
| polite company?_
|
| I'm pretty sure I both am and am aware enough of the line
| and its ambiguity to weaponise it against someone else if
| I wanted to. Add to that cultural variance in where the
| line lies and you effectively wind up censoring cross-
| gender discussion of gender-relevant topics.
|
| I don't think Graham is advocating for lewd jokes in the
| workplace, or suggesting the womens' rights movements of
| the 60s were misplaced. He's arguing against universally
| institutionalising rules of politeness, and being
| particularly wary of doing it one way.
|
| > _in polite company_
|
| Graham is arguing against the expansion of polite company
| to virtually the entire discussion space. In that, I kind
| of agree.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure I both am and am aware enough of the
| line and its ambiguity to weaponise it against someone
| else if I wanted to.
|
| I have been in customer facing roles since mid 2020 as a
| consultant. There really is no ambiguity. I don't talk
| about anything that can hint at going in a sexual
| direction, or politics or religion. I just don't get
| involved with those types of conversation at work.
|
| Occasionally, I do have to talk about politics as it
| affects business especially since I spent a lot of time
| working in the Education/State and Local Government
| space.
|
| > He's arguing against universally institutionalising
| rules of politeness, and being particularly wary of doing
| it one way.
|
| There has always been institutionalization of what one
| should and shouldn't talk about in "polite company".
| Those norms have changed through the years and rightfully
| so. Did your parents grow up in the Jim crow south?
|
| > Graham is arguing against the expansion of polite
| company to virtually the entire discussion space. In
| that, I kind of agree.
|
| How is that any different than it has always been? I talk
| differently when I'm with my friends and family in
| private than I do when I'm in public spaces.
|
| Society would look at me like I was crazy if I did the
| same amount of "cussing, drinking and telling lies"
| loudly like I do when I'm at home with my friends playing
| cards if I did it in public.
|
| We all "code switch" to an extent.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _There really is no ambiguity. I don't talk about
| anything that can hint at going in a sexual direction, or
| politics or religion_
|
| One can absolutely impute all kinds of nonsense from
| inaction as much as action.
|
| I'd also challenge the fact that I don't need to make
| lewd jokes as extending to the premise that they need
| never be made. (Or that our refraining from making them
| doesn't cover up something darker.)
|
| > _norms have changed through the years and rightfully
| so. Did your parents grow up in the Jim crow south?_
|
| And most of those shifts are reasonable. Some, however,
| are purely performative. Latinx is a frequent example,
| though I've never met anyone who seriously used it. As a
| gay non-white man, there is plenty of performative
| nonsense online that comes from people who I can't
| imagine actually have any friends who are in the category
| they claim to be looking out for. (There are also jokes
| that, while off colour, speak to something true, even if
| they're made at the expense of some of my immutable
| characteristics.)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > _I'd also challenge the fact that I don't need to make
| lewd jokes as extending to the premise that they need
| never be made. (Or that our refraining from making them
| doesn't cover up something darker.)_
|
| They don't ever need to be made _in polite company_. I
| don't consider "polite company" to be comedy, what you do
| or say in the privacy of your own home, etc.
|
| I'm a Black guy and the amount of times you will here the
| "n word" and "fuck" fly out of my mouth in private and
| with family of my generation rises to the level of Samuel
| Jackson.
|
| And I know no Black person that says "African American"
| outside of some professional circumstances.
| renewiltord wrote:
| And yet, here you are, making the lewdest of remarks.
| You're making me uncomfortable and need to stop making
| hurtful accusations that could be damaging to people. We're
| trying to have a polite discussion here.
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar hell.
| You can disagree without this. There was nothing lewd in
| what scarface_74 posted.
| svieira wrote:
| Correct, but if the point is "what is lewd can change out
| from under you without any consent on your part" _ad
| contra_ scarface and in support of the OP, then this is a
| reasonable response (though I agree it would have been
| better to put it in quotes and then point out the issue
| in several follow-on paragraphs to better fit with the
| site. This isn 't Reddit).
| scarface_74 wrote:
| So give an example of what is now considered lewd that
| changed out from under you?
| renewiltord wrote:
| "According to your opinion, and it's your site so you can
| censor people who speak up. But I can see that you don't
| take sexual violence seriously. It's your choice to
| enable serial sexual harassment through lewd comments."
|
| There I put it in quotes so you can see the point being
| made. Considering I can attribute lewdness to nothing, I
| am easily capable of doing so from any comment. Now, as
| an "individual of color experiencing comment censorship"
| (the phrase for someone who is downvoted), I demand
| action.
| dang wrote:
| I understand, but in my view it's neither a good argument
| nor a helpful point.
|
| You're right that the meaning of a word like "lewd" is
| disputed. But disputed is not the same as arbitrary, so
| your argument falls afoul of this guideline: " _Please
| respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what
| someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize._"
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)
|
| Whem you respond to people with opposite views (e.g.
| scarface_74 and gedpeck in this thread) in that way, you
| stand no change of persuading them or even of generating
| a curious response in them. It's guaranteed to be
| alienating. That's the opposite of the kind of
| conversation we're hoping for here.
|
| What it _will_ do is generate reinforced agreement among
| readers who already shared your view, but this is also
| the opposite of the kind of conversation we 're hoping
| for--not just (or even at all) because it worsens
| polarization, but because repetition is bad for
| curiosity, and these are some of the most-hammered nails
| that exist.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false
| &so...
| renewiltord wrote:
| Ah, but you believe repeated statements that it's easy to
| know what lewdness is are helpful and novel? They are
| mere assertions, not argument, and can only be met by
| direct contradiction.
|
| Regardless, you are correct that this discussion is
| tiresome and besides, pg has pointed out that it's over:
| freedom is winning. It's gauche to fight after victory is
| declared.
| gedpeck wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _obviously there is a limit_
|
| Whether there is or isn't is irrelevant. The fact that when
| asked "how much," the answer seems to have no defined limit
| is what I'm criticising.
| gedpeck wrote:
| I'm not the one who quantified things. Graham did. I take
| it then you agree with me that Graham's statement was
| written without merit or justification.
|
| EDIT: Graham wrote, "Not a problem on the scale that the
| woke believe it to be, but a genuine one."
|
| He stated a limit on the level of racism. He gave a bound
| on it. He said it is less that what woke people think it
| is. CrissCross is being deliberately obtuse. This edit is
| for people who come across this thread. My comment
| pointed out that Graham didn't justify this belief. I
| don't know the level of racism and I'm not arrogant
| enough to try.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _I'm not the one who quantified things. Graham did_
|
| He quite literally didn't. There are almost no numbers in
| the entire essay. The argument you object to is
| qualitative.
|
| > _take it then you agree with me that Graham's statement
| was written without merit or justification_
|
| No. The exact limit is both irrelevant and not definable.
| _Your_ comment demanded a "scale to the problem."
|
| EDIT: > _EDIT: Graham wrote, "Not a problem on the scale
| that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one." He
| stated a limit on the level of racism. He gave a bound on
| it. He said it is less that what woke people think it is_
|
| One, still not quantitative. Two, nobody is debating
| whether there is a limit. (I said "there is no limit to
| racism that has ever been proposed by the far left," and
| you said "obviously there is a limit." These statements
| can coexist.)
|
| The question is whether Americans' subjective sense of
| our own racism is accurate. And I'm saying that someone
| who claims there is more racism than the average person
| thinks and then fails to define it (the burden being on
| them, after all, for rejecting the _status quo_ ), that
| said person is probably overestimating it. Not
| necessarily. And there are _plenty_ of activists and
| academics who are quite precise about defining and
| measuring racism. But those folks aren't usually the ones
| running around online calling others racist.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please make your substantive points without resorting
| to the flamewar style? Your comments are standing out as more
| flamey than anyone else's that I've seen, so far, in the
| thread.
|
| In particular, it would be good if you would note and follow
| the following site guidelines:
|
| " _Don 't be snarky._"
|
| " _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of
| calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be
| shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3._"
|
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of
| what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| Your views are welcome, but we need you to express them in the
| intended spirit of the forum. The same, of course, is true for
| anyone with opposing views.
|
| If you wouldn't mind reviewing
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the
| intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
| gedpeck wrote:
| I've been on the site since the beginning under various
| usernames. I agree with your point overall but sometimes
| something said truly is "bad" (idiotic, foolish, whatever)
| and is deserving of being called so.
|
| I believe writing "after the riots of 2020" and framing what
| happened as "wokeness" qualifies as idiotic.
|
| I made my points and haven't responded further. I don't
| believe I've said anything else that can be considered
| flamewar style commentary. I'll keep in mind what you've
| said.
| dang wrote:
| The trouble is that all those labels do is rile up people
| who want to use opposite labels, or put the same labels on
| opposite things. Then we get into a label war, which is bad
| for everybody and invariably deterioriates into acrimony.
| We're trying to avoid that sort of internet here.
| gedpeck wrote:
| You got a lot on your hands and I'm writing what follows
| more for myself than for an attempt to change your mind.
| The Overton window has greatly shifted rightward the last
| 50 years. The sort of statements being made by people
| like Musk merit condemnation. It's no longer a matter of
| let's politely disagree and state our mutual positions.
| We are well into the realm of the Paradox of Tolerance.
| Normalizing abhorrent viewpoints is not a lofty goal.
| dang wrote:
| I appreciate the reply and it generates at least half a
| dozen interesting (to me!) responses in me, but it would
| probably take all afternoon to figure out what they are
| and write them down, so I guess I'd better not :(
|
| (especially because getting my wording wrong on topics
| like this leads to painful reactions - I don't mean from
| you, but the format here _feels_ like intimate
| conversation when in fact it 's public broadcasting)
| shadowgovt wrote:
| In Paul Graham's hierarchy of disagreement, he notes that
| articulate forms of name-calling are still name-calling.
|
| When Graham opens his essay by providing a definition of
| 'prig' but then using that pejorative over and over again to
| refer to his conceptual opposition in this essay, how are
| those who are responding to the essay to respond? It seems we
| put ourselves on a field disadvantage if we are to argue a
| point with an author who is immediately resorting to name-
| calling with one arm tied behind our backs.
|
| I respect this site tries to be something else than other
| online fora. But it is a site still inextricably tied to
| Graham and his legacy, so when he drops an essay like this
| it's reasonable to either expect people responding to it will
| take the same tone as the founder of this site, or that we
| should be very, very clear that this site has become
| something not at all associated with its founding.
|
| Has it?
| m_ke wrote:
| Wokeness is what happens when you have socially liberal and
| fiscally conservative investors / executives try to please their
| democratic leaning employees without having to pay more taxes. It
| costs them nothing, so you get corporations and the media to
| embrace race and gender progressivism with a full clamp down on
| any true progressive causes like universal health care, free
| education and etc.
|
| The same VCs crying about wokeness are also crying about a
| collapse of the manufacturing base in the US, when they're the
| ones responsible for offshoring all of it and not investing in
| any business that deal with physical goods because software are
| so much larger.
|
| As an example, yes Starbucks can have LGBT mugs but hell no to
| unions.
| nahuel0x wrote:
| "Starbucks can have LGBT mugs but hell no to unions". I think
| you hit the nail on the head. There is a whole chapter to be
| written about pro/anti "wokeness" stances used by companies /
| politicians to divert attention from the deeper class vs class
| issues.
| m_ke wrote:
| Wokeness is also a way the media can smack down candidates
| like Corbin and Sanders, labeling them sexist or an
| antisemite for focusing on class instead of identity
| politics.
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| It is no coincidence that wokeness arose during Occupy Wall
| Street, and the insistence on the use of the "progressive
| stack" was part of what destroyed that protest movement.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| "Humor is one of the most powerful weapons against priggishness
| of any sort, because prigs, being humorless, can't respond in
| kind. Humor was what defeated Victorian prudishness, and by 2000
| it seemed to have done the same thing to political correctness.
|
| ...
|
| My younger son likes to imitate voices, and at one point when he
| was about seven I had to explain which accents it was currently
| safe to imitate publicly and which not. It took about ten
| minutes, and I still hadn't covered all the cases.
|
| In 1986 the Supreme Court ruled that creating a hostile work
| environment could constitute sex discrimination, which in turn
| affected universities via Title IX. The court specified that the
| test of a hostile environment was whether it would bother a
| reasonable person, but since for a professor merely being the
| subject of a sexual harassment complaint would be a disaster
| whether the complainant was reasonable or not, in practice any
| joke or remark remotely connected with sex was now effectively
| forbidden. Which meant we'd now come full circle to Victorian
| codes of behavior, when there was a large class of things that
| might not be said 'with ladies present.'"
|
| I'm linking two thoughts the essay doesn't explicitly connect,
| but which I think is important to the thesis of why 2010-era
| cancel culture didn't get cancelled itself, and that's its almost
| autoimmune capacity to cancel comedians.
|
| That said, Graham elides over how cancel culture was renamed
| "woke." Was it the left or the right who did this? I suspect the
| latter, at which point we have to contend with the existence of
| two mind viruses, the cancel-culture/woke one and the anti-woke
| totem of the left.
|
| Also, this requires more thought: "publishing online enabled --
| in fact probably forced -- newspapers to switch to serving
| markets defined by ideology instead of geography. Most that
| remained in business fell in the direction they'd already been
| leaning: left."
|
| Why? And why have right-wing publications failed to gain
| comparable traction?
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > My younger son likes to imitate voices, and at one point when
| he was about seven I had to explain which accents it was
| currently safe to imitate publicly and which not
|
| See how much pearl clutching you will get by southern "anti-
| woke" folks when someone imitates their voice or start saying
| the only thing they care about is "Gods and Guns".
|
| FWIW: I was born and raised in southern GA and have only lived
| in two states my entire life - GA and FL.
|
| They are very sensitive if you talk about their way of life or
| say anything that can be interpreted as anti-Christian.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _See how much pearl clutching you will get by southern
| "anti-woke" folks when someone imitates their voice_
|
| Graham's point, generously, is you'll always have pearl-
| clutching prigs. What matters is if they're empowered.
|
| > _are very sensitive if you talk about their way of life or
| say anything that can be interpreted as anti-Christian_
|
| But they haven't--until recently--had the power to _e.g._ end
| someone's career or ability to perform in New York or San
| Francisco over it.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > Graham's point, generously, is you'll always have pearl-
| clutching prigs. What matters is if they're empowered.
|
| That idea gets very close to
|
| https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/question/2009/march.htm
|
| > "I am a middle-aged white person and even I know that
| blacks and other racial minorities cannot be racist, just
| like women can not be sexists. Racism equals power. Whites
| are not hurt by the everyday flow of society."
|
| I'm Black and I can go into a long rant about how I
| disagree with every word of that sentence.
|
| But the Christian Right has had most of the power in the US
| for most of its existence until the rise of tech during the
| last 20 years. The entire crusade against "woke" is that
| demographic shifts are going to make the US a "minority
| majority" country within our lifetimes and that people who
| were usually in the shadows are now able to speak out.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the Christian Right has had most of the power in the
| US for most of its existence until the rise of tech
| during the last 20 years_
|
| I'd argue their power fell earlier, with the Civil Rights
| movement: we've seen almost monotonic decreases in
| Christian religiosity since [1]. (It's currently in a
| generational peak. I don't know if that's a last gasp of
| their boomers or something deeper.)
|
| > _The entire crusade against 'woke' is that demographic
| shifts are going to make the US a 'minority majority'
| country within our lifetimes and that people who were
| usually in the shadows are now able to speak out_
|
| I think it's about as unfair to paint the rejection of
| "wokeness" like this as it is to paint every progressive
| policy as woke.
|
| [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2022/09/13/how-
| u-s-reli...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| > I'd argue their power fell earlier, with the Civil
| Rights movement: we've seen almost monotonic decreases in
| Christian religiosity since
|
| Unfortunately between the way that Electoral College,
| gerrymandering and 2 Senators per state works, the
| religious right has far more influence than their
| population would call for.
|
| I'm not saying that last years election was caused by
| that. It was mostly because of the ineptitude of the
| Democrat party
| kagakuninja wrote:
| Fundamentalist Christians were the original prigs. It is
| amusing to see pg try and shoehorn the word on to the social
| justice movement.
| svieira wrote:
| Puritans predate "Fundamentalists" in the American
| Christian sense of the term, and if we're just following
| _this_ line of thought (and no others) the Romans were busy
| setting Christians on fire for garden parties because they
| were not willing to conform to what the Empire demanded
| (worship of the Emperor and acknowledgement of many gods).
| blast wrote:
| They have much in common.
| freedomben wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I do think it's important to note
| whether the person is mocking the southern accent or just
| imitating it as a form of flattery. Often it's the former
| rather than the latter. The (vast) majority of the time I
| hear someone doing a southern accent it's for purposes of
| making fun of them, especially for being stupid/redneck. I
| don't think it's unreasonable to be offended when somebody is
| mocking you.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| There is no world where people imitate a southern accent as
| a form of "flattery" any more than when a White person
| immitates how they perceive Black people talking or how
| imitating Indian accents use to be the norm.
|
| Of course the exception I can think of for imitating
| southern accents would be acting
| freedomben wrote:
| I think you're probably right wrt flattery of southern
| accent, but for white people imitated black accents I
| have to disagree. Growing up one of my friend idolized
| Will Smith and thought he was the most badass dude on the
| planet. He would often quote movie lines from him with
| the accent, and it was 100% a form of flattery. It is
| also very common for white people to rap along with black
| artists using the same accent, and it's because they love
| the song and the style. Nowadays most parents will
| immediately try to silence their kids for doing that in
| public, and anyone older than about 12 is now terrified
| of doing that, so it's quite possible things have
| changed.
|
| That said, I would agree that the majority of people
| doing accents are likely to be mocking. I'm not sure how
| to prevent throwing the baby out with the bath water
| though.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Will Smith has never had a stereotypical "black accent".
| (I'm Black by the way). But do you notice that no matter
| how accepted an actor is in the Black community or even
| the Black hip hop community - ie Eminem - that they never
| say "the N word" in public or in their lyrics? Of course
| in movies you will hear it.
|
| As an aside, I do think Robert Downey Jr. may be the last
| White guy who can wear Black face in a movie without
| getting canceled.
| frizlab wrote:
| > _The number of true things we can 't say should not increase.
| If it does, something is wrong._
|
| Word.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| And...
|
| > The danger of these rules was not just that they created land
| mines for the unwary, but that their elaborateness made them an
| effective substitute for virtue. Whenever a society has a
| concept of heresy and orthodoxy, orthodoxy becomes a substitute
| for virtue. You can be the worst person in the world, but as
| long as you're orthodox you're better than everyone who isn't.
| This makes orthodoxy very attractive to bad people.
| somedude895 wrote:
| Over the past couple of weeks there have been two heavy
| virtue signalers in my social circle that have turned out to
| be complete assholes to people around them, and I had that
| thought exactly. Maybe the very reason they feel the need to
| get approval from "virtuous" people is because they
| themselves are so awful.
| kstrauser wrote:
| The problem comes from deciding what's true. It's factually
| true to say that a higher percentage of black people than white
| people are convicted felons. It's also grossly negligent to
| describe that as a _cause_ ( "black people have higher
| tendencies to become criminals") than as an effect ("centuries
| of systemic racism held higher numbers of black people in
| poverty, and poverty highly correlates to the kind of criminal
| behavior that gets you arrested, and also lower quality legal
| representation, which makes it more likely that the next
| generation will also be poor; lather, rise, repeat").
|
| Is it a lie to say "black people are more likely to be felons"?
| No, but if that's _all_ you have to say on the subject, then
| you 're probably a jerk and shouldn't be talking about it at
| all.
|
| TL;DR I'm weary of people saying things that are factually true
| on the face of them, but that utterly distort the conversation.
| See also: "scientists don't know how old the universe is" (but
| have a broad consensus of a narrow band of values), "vaccines
| can harm you" (so can water), "it's getting cooler in some
| places" (global climate change doesn't add X degrees to every
| location uniformly), etc. etc. etc.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| True things which make you a jerk (to some) shouldn't be
| censored to avoid "distorting the conversation". Respondents
| can explain the context.
| jandrese wrote:
| The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than
| you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude
| faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little
| thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie
| has been rebutted several times there is little value in
| allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth
| tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in
| perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it
| over time.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I
| have no faith that there is some authoritative entity
| that could objectively determine what is a lie and what
| is the truth.
| perlgeek wrote:
| If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world
| that is spammed with so many statements that it's
| impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth
| of any of them.
|
| Is that what you want?
|
| If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more
| speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of
| each.
| triceratops wrote:
| > Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
|
| I ain't doing all that work. I'm picking whatever I
| already believe in.
|
| /s but only kind of. That's how most people think. They
| aren't enlightened like you.
| jandrese wrote:
| But your approach results in someone who can't even
| conceive of the truth being identifiable. It doesn't seem
| like a great way to run a society.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| I am unable to connect your sentence to what I said.
| jandrese wrote:
| > I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity
| that could objectively determine what is a lie and what
| is the truth.
|
| I read this as "it is impossible to determine truth". If
| there exists a well resourced entity who's entire purpose
| in life is to determine objective truth and they are
| unable to do so what chance do I have?
| acuozzo wrote:
| > Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
|
| Assuming intelligence is normally distributed, then
| what's the plan for the bottom 50% here?
| baggy_trough wrote:
| As stated.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| Let people be wrong
| kstrauser wrote:
| That's great until it convinces them to make real-world
| decisions that affect the rest of us. For instance,
| vaccine misinformation talked a lot of people against
| getting safe (or at least safer than the illness),
| effective (not _perfect_ , but _effective_ ) immunity
| shots for COVID. Those people are dead from being wrong.
|
| I think someone's an idiot for denying the moon landings,
| but their ignorance doesn't directly affect my ability to
| stay alive and health. Some misinformation is worse than
| others.
| layer8 wrote:
| The opposite of "truth" is not "lie", however.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| So who gets to be arbiter of truth? and what is the
| recourse if they are wrong?
| kstrauser wrote:
| I agree that the government should not censor statements
| that don't violated specific laws.
|
| I am strongly convinced that any person or organization has
| the right to moderate content flowing through the systems
| they host. If you want to say "I don't believe the
| Holocaust happened", that should be your legal right. It
| should be my legal right to tell you, "go get your own
| soapbox to spout that nonsense. You're not doing it on my
| dime."
| e_y_ wrote:
| I would generally agree, but in many cases 1) people don't
| read the comments/replies, 2) interesting responses get
| drowned out by low-quality responses, 3) the criteria by
| which useful responses get highlighted can be skewed by a
| variety of factors, including vote brigading and
| algorithmic bias or sometimes just a bias towards the
| earliest comments (which get upvotes, which then get more
| views, which get more upvotes).
| miltonlost wrote:
| What are some true things you cannot say? Enumerate some,
| please.
| tantalor wrote:
| > saying "colored people" gets you fired
| growse wrote:
| But not arrested.
|
| Freedom of association is a thing.
| tantalor wrote:
| Can you elaborate? I want to take you seriously but I
| don't get your point.
|
| There are very few situations where speech leads to
| incarceration, and I don't think PG is talking about
| those, is he?
| growse wrote:
| My point is that "cannot say" is pure hyperbole. Your
| freedom to say whatever you want is not impinged, and my
| equivalent freedom to shun you based on what you say is
| similarly unimpinged.
|
| Usually when people complain about what you "can't say",
| what they actually mean is they can't say whatever they
| like and still have people still employ / socialise / be
| nice to them.
|
| Expressing opinions that others find disagreeable is not
| a protected class.
| tantalor wrote:
| Oh yes, point well taken, thanks for the extra context.
| etiam wrote:
| Pure hyperbole is pure hyperbole.
|
| If you want to shun me for not loudly enough pronouncing
| how great some sort of special privileges for certain
| ostensibly oppressed classes is, or for not jumping
| enthusiastically enough though hoops referencing people
| with exactly the most woke-community prescribed
| terminology, then chances are I don't particularly to
| associate with you either. That's fine.
|
| If you start telling lies about me online and try to
| incite a mob to threaten or harm me and the people who do
| opt to socialize with me (despite or maybe even because
| of my opinions), or organize mobs for PR damage to
| pressure my boss into taking away my livelihood, that is
| something quite beyond exercising your right to choose
| your associations.
|
| Of course that would still not literally make me unable
| to pronounce my woke-taboo opinion, but it should
| nonetheless be obvious that trying to wreck my life is a
| disproportionate response merely to me not toeing the
| line _you_ took it upon yourself to draw. What you
| "can't say" is almost always graded rather than absolute,
| but active hostility destroying months or years of a
| person's life is well into the territory that constitutes
| a real hindrance for freely expressing an opinion.
| philjohn wrote:
| In a first instance? Unlikely.
|
| If you KEEP saying it, despite being told that it's making
| your coworkers uncomfortable, then you're just being an
| asshole, and sorry, people don't like working with
| assholes.
| jandrese wrote:
| I like to follow a statement like that up with: What exactly
| did you want to say that you can't anymore? Please give some
| specific examples.
|
| While the sentiment sounds good on paper, in practice it far
| too often is someone complaining that you can't demand a black
| men to be lynched if they have a white girlfriend anymore
| because society has gone all woke.
|
| There are lots of things that aren't 'PC' to say anymore and
| that doesn't mean society is failing. In fact I would argue
| that it is just plain old progress, especially when it is
| accompanied by a number of things that we can now say that used
| to be taboo.
|
| Out with: "Gay people should be burned at the stake."
|
| In with: "Contraception allows families to decide when to have
| children."
| chihuahua wrote:
| I have a specific example in mind, but I fear that if I
| mention it, I'll be doxxed, cancelled, fired, and burned at
| the stake.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/1357/
| jrm4 wrote:
| This presumes a high, perhaps _delusional_ , level of faith in
| the public speaking space to determine what is "true."
| root-user wrote:
| We used to just laugh at trolls, and folks who took things too
| seriously online. "Go outside ***".
|
| There was a fundamental understanding that "online" is not the
| "real world", and that no meaningful action could be accomplished
| in the former.
|
| Now we have billionaires penning huge essays about it. We
| collectively lost the plot I guess.
|
| Just touch grass, Paul.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| [flagged]
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it's now "woke" to say that multiple police officers
| shouldn't kill someone by sitting on their neck for 9 minutes_
|
| He's using the moment as a time stamp, not rendering commentary
| on it _per se_. Floyd was arguably the peak of legitimacy and
| acceptance of what we (and he) now calls woke culture. (I'd set
| the time a little later, around the '22 midterms, but we're in
| the same ballpark.)
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That doesn't exactly help. Minorities have been trying to get
| society to wake up to police brutality since at least as far
| back as NWA's "Fuck the Police" when Tipper Gore was
| clutching her pearls about the affect such music had on
| society.
|
| It was just not until social media where minorities could get
| around the press and media filter.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Minorities have been trying to get society to wake up to
| police brutality_
|
| And it happened, to a degree. Then it got overplayed, in
| part because the prigs Graham criticises were less
| concerned with police violence than they were with arguing
| online about it.
|
| That in turn not only animated a pro-police backlash on the
| right, it also sapped the police/sentencing reform movement
| of the legitimacy it would need to survive mistakes, _e.g._
| Chesa.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| The right has been pro police since day one. There is no
| world where the right was going to be in favor of
| criminal justice or police reform until it started
| affecting them.
|
| This is so well known that during the protest in 2021,
| there were "white shields" where White people would stand
| in front of Black protestors because everyone knows that
| police would not beat White people because there would be
| consequences.
|
| https://www.blackenterprise.com/white-protesters-form-
| human-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _no world where the right was going to be in favor of
| criminal justice or police reform until it started
| affecting them_
|
| Sure. That doesn't mean it's a given that the
| disinterested middle will be swayed by them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| That we agree with. There is a huge difference between
| "we need to allocate funds for mental health and other
| societal ills that cause people to be incarcerated and we
| need to have more accountable for police misconduct" and
| "defund the police".
| pmdulaney wrote:
| Here "affect" should be "effect".
| scarface_74 wrote:
| You're getting downvoted. But one of my pet peeves is
| when people use "jive" instead of "jibe". Fair is fair.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Using his definition, it was peak _performance_.
|
| I think a key tenant to wokeness in this framework is the
| emphasis on awareness/alertness relative to solutions.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of
| what someone says, not a weaker one that 's easier to
| criticize. Assume good faith._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| krosaen wrote:
| His accounting for what attracts people to wokeness is
| incomplete. Certainly there are prigs in the mix, but for most, I
| think it's that wokeness, as he defines it, is often tightly
| coupled with good things, like sexual harassment being taken more
| seriously. The challenge, then, is how we can do things like take
| sexual harassment more seriously without also folding that effort
| into an ideology with vague expansive definitions that lend
| themselves to actual prigs.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> wokeness, as he defines it, is often tightly coupled with
| good things, like sexual harassment being taken more
| seriously._
|
| I'm not sure that's true. Wokeness doesn't focus on actual
| harassment; it focuses on accusations of harassment, with a
| definition of "harassment" that is highly subjective and
| doesn't necessarily correlate very well with actual harassment.
|
| _> how we can do things like take sexual harassment more
| seriously_
|
| The problem is not that we need to take, for example, sexual
| harassment "more seriously". The problem is how to reduce how
| often actual sexual harassment happens. "Taking it more
| seriously" is a very vague and ineffective way to do that.
| krosaen wrote:
| Maybe I could refine it to, what motivates many people who
| are attracted to wokeness is an earnest desire to do good
| things. I do think good comes out of it, along with bad. But
| we can set that aside and refine the point that I don't think
| the majority of people who initially went along with wokeness
| were aggressively conventionally minded nor prigs. I think
| his essay would be more persuasive if he acknowledged that
| there is an earnest desire to do good mixed in with it, which
| makes it a thornier issue. Otherwise, people who were or are
| into wokeness who are not prigs, or merely afraid of running
| afoul of etiquette, will probably dismiss the essay.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> what motivates many people who are attracted to wokeness
| is an earnest desire to do good things_
|
| While I agree that this is true, I think the point pg makes
| in his article could be extended to a general rule that, if
| you find your earnest desire to do good things is leading
| you to embrace something like wokeness, you need to take a
| step back. The best way to do good things is to do good
| things--in other words, to find specific things that _you_
| can do that are good, based on your specific knowledge of
| particular people and particular cases, and do them.
| Participating in general efforts to micromanage people to
| make them do good things, or to stop them from doing bad
| things, which is what wokeness is, is a very poor way to
| make use of your earnest desire to good things.
| ajkjk wrote:
| I feel like when this all started out the problem was really
| taking it more seriously. People would talk and complain
| about it and no one would take them seriously. So the group
| managed to scrounge together enough power to force it to
| happen.. And then some of that power got misused. It's still
| better than it was before it started, though.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> It 's still better than it was before it started,
| though._
|
| Is it? To hear wokeness advocates talk, things have gotten
| worse.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| > The problem is how to reduce how often actual sexual
| harassment happens. "Taking it more seriously" is a very
| vague and ineffective way to do that.
|
| Taking it seriously is a prerequisite for any effective
| mechanism for reducing sexual harassment.
| pdonis wrote:
| I'm not so sure. See my response to triceratops.
| triceratops wrote:
| > The problem is not that we need to take, for example,
| sexual harassment "more seriously". The problem is how to
| reduce how often actual sexual harassment happens. "Taking it
| more seriously" is a very vague and ineffective way to do
| that.
|
| Try replacing "sexual harassment" with "murder" or "robbery"
| and see if it still makes sense.
| pdonis wrote:
| _How_ do we take murder or robbery seriously? We say we do
| that by making and enforcing laws against murder and
| robbery. But do we actually _do_ what we say?
|
| How many innocent people get convicted of murder because of
| our desire to "take murder seriously"? (The Innocence
| Project has found that the answer is "quite a lot".) Note
| that every time an innocent person gets convicted, it means
| a guilty person (the actual murderer) goes free.
|
| How many murderers get released back into society to murder
| again because our desire to take something else "seriously"
| has somehow overridden proper enforcement of our laws
| against murder? (I don't know if any specific study has
| looked at this, but my personal sense is, again, "quite a
| lot".)
|
| So no, the lesson of experience appears to be that "taking
| it more seriously" is not a good way to reduce how often
| some bad thing happens, with murder just as with sexual
| harassment.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| So, there are (at least) two axes here, right?
|
| "How seriously we take a thing" and "how good a job are
| we are doing."
|
| In the case of murder in America, I would say the answers
| are "extremely seriously" and "we are doing a very
| imperfect job."
|
| We should certainly do a better job of it, but I don't
| think the answer is to be less serious about murder. And
| -- clearly, I'd hope -- the point of the analogy is that
| some (many? most?) problems are societal.
|
| Simply choosing to not murder people yourself is a great
| start, but it is a society-wide issue that can't be
| completely addressed by people simply choosing to do the
| right things on an individual basis.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yes. All analogies suck to various extents, but, "murder"
| and "robbery" are pretty apt analogies.
|
| A lot of problems can only addressed systemically.
|
| Murder? Yes, an excellent start to solving this problem is
| to not murder anybody. That's really the single most
| important thing you do.
|
| And yet, history shows, other people are going to do
| murders and simply _not murdering people yourself_ is not
| sufficient to deal with this problem. You need to intervene
| or call for help if you see somebody getting murdered, and
| we need some sort of system to deal with murderers and
| protect other people from them, etc.
|
| If murder is too extreme a metaphor for the anti-woke
| crowd, how about pissing on the bathroom floor? It's great
| if _you_ are not pissing on the floor, but somebody is and
| we all have to walk on that floor, so we need to have some
| kind of community standards around it, and also somebody
| needs to clean up that piss.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| The problem is how to reduce how often actual sexual
| harassment happens. "Taking it more seriously" is a
| very vague and ineffective way to do that.
|
| Why do you perceive some sort of conflict or paradox between
| "taking it more seriously" and coming up with an effective
| way to prevent it?
|
| I mean, that _is_ "taking it more seriously."
| a definition of "harassment" that is highly
| subjective and doesn't necessarily correlate very
| well with actual harassment.
|
| I swear, this whole topic is just an ouroboros of people
| talking over each other about vaguely defined terms.
|
| You complain that "wokeness" has a "highly subjective"
| definition of harassment that "doesn't necessarily correlate
| well" with reality.
|
| "Wokeness" itself is an incredibly vague and amorphous term,
| primarily wielded by those who oppose it. It barely exists
| except in the minds of its opponents, and certainly does not
| have some kind of governing body or like, official position
| on harassment or anything else.
|
| If you feel that some specific person or institution is doing
| a shitty job of addressing harassment, or if you have some
| specific ideas of your own, those would be great things to
| bring to the table.
|
| But accusing a vague and amorophous thing about being too
| vague and amorphous about another thing is... man, please,
| stop.
| armchairhacker wrote:
| This article was written due to recent events.
|
| - IMO it should've acknowledged that there is genuine
| "intolerance" of foreigners/gays/trans, not the speech/writing
| you hear about in the news, but specifically the physical attacks
| and legal discrimination in third-world countries and rarely by
| extremists in first-world countries. And that seemingly-mild
| speech _can_ lead to blatant hate speech, then physical attacks
| and legal discrimination; but it 's not inevitable, and
| analogously when society swings to the center, it can swing too
| far to the other side, but maybe there's friction that makes it
| swing less and pulls it closer to an ideal equilibrium.
|
| - It also states that Twitter doesn't censor left-wingers, which
| is factually wrong, unless every case of journalists being
| suspended and links being auto-removed is made-up or overblown.
| 4chan is an example of _true_ free speech (sans calls to violence
| etc.), but it doesn 't help the argument for multiple reasons. I
| think it's too early to say that "wokeness" is being rolled back;
| the truth is, woke intolerance isn't as pervasive as people think
| it is, so you will always find examples of people who directly
| contradict it and prosper.
|
| However,
|
| I strongly agree with the core message: _there will always be
| people who use "morals" to control others_. Taken straight from
| the article: "There's a certain kind of person who's attracted to
| a shallow, exacting kind of moral purity, and who demonstrates
| his purity by attacking anyone who breaks the rules. Every
| society has these people. All that changes is the rules they
| enforce." The article applies this and the remaining parts to
| left-wing "social-justice warriors" but you can apply it to
| right-wing religious zealots.*
|
| The reality of "free speech", "live-and-let-live", and other
| compromises, are that people use them for their own agenda, to
| get more control. But that's OK. One of the reasons we have as
| much free speech as we do today, is that there are groups from
| all sides pushing it for their own reasons, and within these
| groups there's an opening to express your opinion. The vast
| majority of people are more focused on helping themselves than
| they are hurting you, even when hurting you is on their agenda,
| which means you can benefit from compromising with even smart
| people who hate you.
|
| * Also, Paul Graham isn't really saying anything that he hasn't
| before. See: https://paulgraham.com/heresy.html,
| https://paulgraham.com/conformism.html, and
| https://paulgraham.com/say.html, written in 2022, 2020, and
| _2004_. For a different left-biased take, see
| https://paulgraham.com/pow.html, written in 2017. But even if he
| was, this response stands. You can pick decent messages even out
| of articles people far, far more "right-wing" say, although it's
| a lot harder, and unlike this one the message you pick out
| probably won't be what the writer intended.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| I think it's interesting that pg references James Lindsay and
| Peter Boghossian in footnote 15.
|
| These two (professional) philosophers are arguably the vanguard
| of philosophical opposition to identity politics; they have
| written extensively on it, tracing its ideological roots to
| Karl Marx and comparing it to the Maoist cultural revolution in
| China. (And it bears being said: they're certainly not
| prejudiced against any majority or minority group.)
| gumboshoes wrote:
| A big swing and a miss by Paul Graham for a season-losing
| strikeout. Above all, he begs the question in the original sense
| of "beg the question" - he defines the terms "woke" and
| "wokeness" by themselves. He uses the secondary and willful
| redefinitions of those who would permanently corrupt the terms.
| Further, he excludes the original and true meanings of "woke" and
| "wokeness" by denying that they are still in play or still in use
| merely on his say-so, perhaps because that conveniently fits his
| narrative. Excluding contradicting data is how you corrupt an
| analysis to match the thesis statement. Additionally, matching
| the terms to anything to do with "political correctness" is the
| same: borrowing the right's redefinitions in a circular question-
| begging fashion. It's also all rather unoriginal and tired. We've
| had many decades of this anti-political correctness sophistry if
| not so well-written. It's cud pre-chewed by a thousand dull-eyed
| ruminants. What is accomplished here? I think we've only learned
| about Paul Graham and it isn't flattering.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Eh, it's par for the course for a blog post--some good, some
| inchoate, a little wrong.
|
| I appreciate having the word "prig" to replace criticism of
| both wokeness and the new right Silicon Valley's Musk-Trump
| worship.
| pmdulaney wrote:
| I agree, but I think in the context of pre-twentyfirst-
| century religiosity, "prig" had the connotation of a person
| who was, yes, a huffy moral scold, but essentially harmless.
| In the context of current wokeness, there is a very real
| intent and ability to destroy lives. (As for the new right
| tech bros, I'm not sure if any prigs really have the power to
| hurt them seriously, though certainly Elon's investment in
| Twitter has taken quite a hit.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _As for the new right tech bros, I 'm not sure if any
| prigs really have the power to hurt them seriously_
|
| The new right tech bros are doing their own cancellations.
| Silicon Valley traffics in old tweets critical of Musk or
| Trump like the Victorian courtesans Graham ironically
| criticises.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| we're flagging pg now?
| bloopernova wrote:
| > we're flagging pg now?
|
| I assume it's because the term "woke" will almost always derail
| a thread.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| well, people who use it to self-identify often use it in
| terms of being aware, a positive attribution, and I assume
| people who use it to identify others use it in terms of being
| judgmental, a negative attribution. So yeah, it's a highly
| charged term.
| Daishiman wrote:
| I have never seen anyone in a social network self-
| identifying as "woke".
|
| I have seen it countless times being thrown as a vague,
| shapeless accusatory things that can go from people being
| overboard in their language policing to opposing real,
| actual fascism.
| rcruzeiro wrote:
| Precisely. One commenter above got close to the point but
| then completely missed it: they suggested that people get
| into "wokeism" with good intentions, such as wanting to
| reduce things like sexual harassment. Then, they ponder
| whether there is a way to reduce sexual harassment
| without becoming "woke." They fail to realize that you
| don't simply declare yourself "woke." It is a label
| others assign to you once you decide you are no longer
| going to tolerate things like sexual harassment.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Same with SJWs. Lots of people wore that label until
| their actions caused it to become negative, at which
| point everyone who proudly wore it pretended to never
| have ever heard of it before their ideological enemies
| started using it. No doubt some new label will replace
| woke, be worn proudly, get tarnished by the people who
| wear that label, and once again they'll try fleeing from
| the associations they created.
| ajkjk wrote:
| Hopefully flagging is based on the content and not the writer.
| qingcharles wrote:
| This sort of thing makes me nervous. When the owner of a forum
| finds the masses don't unflaggingly support his take on
| something, what's the reaction?
|
| Elon has recently shown us what happens on Twitter when you
| don't tow the line. I don't know that Zuck is meddling behind
| the scenes, but it could just be that he doesn't telegraph it
| as boldly as Musk.
| Ukv wrote:
| > Imagine having to explain to a well-meaning visitor from
| another planet why using the phrase "people of color" is
| considered particularly enlightened, but saying "colored people"
| gets you fired. [...] There are no underlying principles.
|
| To understand much of our language, Gnorts would have to already
| be aware that our words and symbols gain meaning from how they're
| used, and you couldn't, for instance, determine that a swastika
| is offensive (in the west) by its shape alone.
|
| In this case, the term "colored people" gained racist
| connotations from its history of being used for discrimination
| and segregation - and avoiding it for that reason is the primary
| principle at play. There's also the secondary/less universal
| principle of preferring "person-first language".
| dfltr wrote:
| In fact the Gnorts would not have "a long list of rules to
| memorize" with "no underlying principles".
|
| They would instead have a history and culture (or many
| histories and many cultures) to learn in order to contextualize
| words and symbols and find their actual meaning, because
| meaning doesn't really exist without context.
| pydry wrote:
| It's the same with the performative moral posturing. Woke used
| to mean being cognizant of systemic injustice - stuff like
| police brutality. It came from 1970s harlem.
|
| Then the dominant culture that was responsible for a lot of
| that injustice latched on to it and twisted its meaning,
| watering it down.
|
| This is known as political recuperation - when radical ideas
| and terminology gets sanitized and deradicalized. It isnt some
| conspiracy either. It happens naturally, _especially_ in
| America.
|
| Just today I merged to the main branch instead of a master
| branch. This happened because Microsoft employees wanted to
| pressure Microsoft to prevent sales to ICE-the-concentration-
| camp-people and Microsoft wanted to throw them a bone by
| "avoiding the term master" while still making that sweet sale.
|
| Rename that branch and everybody is happy, in theory right?
| Everybody except the people in those concentration camps, I
| guess.
|
| The people in Silly valley with masters degrees and scrum
| master certificates can laugh and pat themselves on the back
| about all of this silliness, imagining that "wokeness" became
| stupid because of Marxism or something, rather than because of
| societal pressures (like the ever present profit motive) which
| they actually _deeply_ approve of.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| In every American community there are varying shades of
| political opinion. One of the shadiest of these is the
| liberals. An outspoken group on many subjects, ten degrees to
| the left of center in good times, ten degrees to the right of
| center if it affects them personally. Here, then, is a lesson
| in safe logic.
|
| Phil Ochs
| glitchc wrote:
| That's a brilliant quote. Thank you for sharing.
| miunau wrote:
| [flagged]
| dang wrote:
| Please make your substantive points without personal attacks.
|
| Btw your assessment could not be further from the truth. I've
| never met anyone who was more interested in learning or more
| intellectually curious than pg is.
| NoMoreNicksLeft wrote:
| I think I once read on reddit that the first few votes a
| comment gets pretty much determines whether it will score sky-
| high, or get downvoted into oblivion.
|
| In the same way "colored people" can gain these connotations,
| just from other few people (falsely or not) inferring that it
| has those connotations. There need not be a history. I've seen
| too many blowups over the years about the word _niggardly_ to
| think otherwise (more than one of these has made national news
| in the last few decades).
|
| It's not that there is a history of discrimination, it's that
| we've all made a public sport out of demonstrating how not-
| racist we are, and people are constantly trying to invent new
| strategies to qualify for the world championships.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > In the same way "colored people" can gain these
| connotations, just from other few people (falsely or not)
| inferring that it has those connotations. [...]
|
| > It's not that there is a history of discrimination
|
| In abstract theory, that would be possible.
|
| In concrete reality, with "colored people", there is, in
| fact, a history of discrimination, and when the context of
| use is not such that there is a clear separation from that
| history (a separation that exists in, e.g., the NAACP
| continuing to use "colored people" in its name) it has become
| problematic _because of_ that history.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Haven't read the article yet, skimming the comments.
|
| Wild quote though. Does PG self censor when using the N word?
| Or does he say it, with the hard r?
|
| If that word isn't part of his vocabulary, why not? Seems like
| it should be.
| recursive wrote:
| > If that word isn't part of his vocabulary, why not? Seems
| like it should be.
|
| I don't get the comparison. Hard "R" or not makes little
| difference. You're eligible to be canceled for using either
| form. So not like PoC/CP.
| tayo42 wrote:
| Without the r, you could maybe say it's a friendly word and
| hide behind that. Though generally yeah consequences
| socially are the same.
| smikhanov wrote:
| I can't for the life of me comprehend how PG manages to write
| in a style that sounds so lucid, so readable and compelling,
| and so authoritative, but on a substance that's so factually
| incorrect that it won't stand to any bit of critique.
|
| Like the paragraph quoted above: it's just so blatantly obvious
| what's wrong with turns like "considered particularly
| enlightened", or "there are no underlying principles" that I
| find it hard to believe that the text as a whole sounds so
| friendly and convincing, unless you stop and think for a
| second.
|
| I wish I could write like this about whatever mush is in my
| head.
| snotrockets wrote:
| I think it's called "from first principles", which is the
| laundered term for "disregarding context and previous work,
| because I don't feel other people's work is worth anything".
| spokaneplumb wrote:
| I find it's super-easy to communicate this way if I pick a
| position I think is _bad and dumb_.
|
| It frees me from giving a shit if I'm using e.g. rhetorical
| tricks in place of good-faith argument. Of course the
| argument's obviously bad, if you're any good at spotting bad
| arguments! So are all the others I've seen or heard
| supporting it. That's why I picked it--it's bad.
|
| I can usually argue positions I disagree with far more
| persuasively and fluently than ones I agree with, because I'm
| not concerned with being correct or making it look bad to
| smart people, nor making myself look dumb for making a bad
| argument (the entire thing is an exercise in making bad
| arguments, there's no chance of a good one coming out). Might
| try that. It's kinda a fun, and/or horrifying, exercise. Drag
| out those slanted and context-free stats, those you-know-to-
| be-disproven-or-commonly-misrepesented anecdotes and studies,
| (mis-)define terms as something obviously bad and proceed to
| tear them apart in a "surely we can all agree..." way (ahem),
| overgeneralize the results of that already-shaky maneuver
| (ahem), misrepresent history in silly ways (ahem), and so on.
| Just cut loose. No worries about looking foolish because you
| already think the position's foolish.
| progbits wrote:
| From a (potentially made up [1]) letter from Freud:
|
| > So yesterday I gave my lecture. Despite a lack of
| preparation, I spoke quite well and without any hesitation,
| which I ascribe to the cocaine I had taken beforehand. I told
| about my discoveries in brain anatomy, all very difficult
| things that the audience certainly didn't understand, but all
| that matters is that they get the impression that I
| understand it.
|
| Maybe pg has the same strategy. Certainly reads that way.
|
| [1] https://www.truthorfiction.com/sigmund-freud-i-ascribe-
| to-th...
| mike_hearn wrote:
| A swastika isn't offensive, not even in Germany where media
| organizations routinely display it. You can easily find this
| symbol in documentaries, on book covers, in movies, and more,
| the world over.
|
| Many of the things done by the users of that symbol were of
| course terrible, in fact the word "offensive" doesn't rise to
| the level of negativity this history requires. But if someone
| saw a book in an airport bookshop that had a swastika on it,
| and then complained to the store managers that they were
| offended by seeing it, they _should_ be politely escorted out
| of the store. That hasn 't always happened in recent times and
| this kind of wokeness is surely not dead, but hopefully as more
| and more people condemn such weakness those who attempt to be
| artifically offended by symbols will go away.
| watwut wrote:
| Swastika use in Germany is heavily regulated. It is certainly
| not free to use symbol.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| It's regulated in such a way that it's absolutely allowed
| to use it to criticize the political opposition, which is
| why Der Spiegel can not only use it but show it combined
| with the German flag:
|
| https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_p
| r...
|
| ... but CJ Hopkins is prosecuted repeatedly for using it on
| the cover of a book that criticized COVID policies (no
| double jeopardy rule there!)
| watwut wrote:
| That is allowed use, Germans actually have fairy sane
| laws. Swastika is heavily regulated and that regulation
| allows this particular use.
| vharuck wrote:
| Books are special cases, because they can be considered
| discussions. And, often, they're nonthreatening discussions.
| Pick up the book if you'd like, read it, think about it,
| respond by talking to others or writing letters. Great way to
| advance knowledge.
|
| But here's a different context: I see somebody spray painting
| a wall in an alley. If they're painting a flower or a
| portrait, I might hang around or come back later to see the
| result. If they're painting a swastika, I'm more likely to
| avoid that alley from then on.
|
| Symbols mean something. If they didn't, nobody would bother
| using them.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| Books aren't considered special cases, as the prosecutions
| in Germany for using one on the cover of a book about
| politics show.
|
| Your hypothetical spray painter could be using the symbol
| in many different ways and contexts, of course, including
| criticism or analogy. Whether you'd avoid it or not would
| probably depend on what the rest of the painting meant.
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| Having the principle of "words become bad because bad people
| use them" is stupid because you cede power to bad people. But
| really, its not a principle at all, its just a dumb cultural
| signaling, ie. "I'm not like those uneducated hicks".
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| Is that how you justify a swastika tattoo? You can also rob
| the bad people of the power to hide behind the words and
| symbols: if only bad people use them, we know the users are
| bad. It's definitely signaling, I don't see why it has to be
| "cultural".
| asdasdsddd wrote:
| Signaling is bad because anyone can signal anything they
| want. Everyone should be judging either other based on
| actions not superfluous signals. And yes, maybe you should
| think twice if you see a swastika tatoo on someone, people
| change and are multi dimensional.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| Everyone "should" be vegan too but I ain't holding my
| breath
| int_19h wrote:
| I don't think a swastika tattoo would be problematic if the
| person doesn't impute Nazi symbolism to theirs. Even in the
| West, swastikas and associated symbology is used pretty
| heavily in neo-pagan circles, and while _some_ of those
| folk are racist, most aren 't.
|
| But OPs point is broader: if you allow the bad people to
| just appropriate the symbol as their own, they're going to
| gradually take over everything. Never mind swastikas; we're
| at the point where making an okay sign can be misconstrued
| as a white nationalist gesture, and people self-censor
| themselves accordingly.
|
| There's also the reverse problem here, where, if you tie
| such things so strongly to symbols in popular opinion, then
| loud condemnation of such symbols is used to "prove" that
| one is not a bad person. For a major ongoing example of
| this look at Russia with its cult of "we defeated the Nazis
| therefore we're definitely the good guys".
|
| At the end of the day, it's really just a lazy shortcut.
| The bad people are bad because of their ideas and actions,
| not because of their symbols. If we always look at the
| ideas and actions, the symbols are irrelevant, and we don't
| have to surrender them to the bad guys' claims.
| rat87 wrote:
| That doesn't really fly. The Nazis are so bad that unless
| you're south Asian a swastika us assumed to be a pro Nazi
| sign. Does it sort of suck? Yeah but it is the way it is.
| Plenty of slurs don't have any inherent negative meaning
| and are slurs because of how they tend to be used.
| Occasionally some minority groups partially reclaim them
| like with Queer but mostly polite people stop using them
| pornel wrote:
| When the meaning of a word gets distorted by use in bad
| faith, it's no longer useful for its original purpose.
|
| Switching to another word isn't ceding power to the bad
| people. It's taking away their power to redefine things. It's
| letting them have the now-useless word exclusively, which
| will become associated with their speech, and not the
| original meaning. The original meaning is reclaimed by using
| a new not-yet-soiled word for it, and the cycle continues.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| they're not negroes, they're colored
|
| they're not colored, they're African-American
|
| they're not African-American, they're black
|
| they're not black, they're Black
|
| they're not Black, they're People of Color
|
| they're not People of Color, they're BIPOC
|
| I wonder what the next twist of the pretzel will look like
| JohnMakin wrote:
| What, IYO, is being twisted here? What should people be
| called?
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Truthfully I think that it is a dialectic process that
| counterintuitively perpetuates a mentality of victimhood
| and otherness. The neverending process of being
| othered//feeling othered//trying to empower oneself in
| one's otherness is entirely futile. To assimilate, you must
| assimilate.
|
| I'm well-aware that I'm being rather evasive and I
| certainly don't think anyone is fooled by what I'm really
| saying.
| drdec wrote:
| Personally, I took the comment to imply that we are not
| really solving the root issue behind what is driving the
| change in terminology and thus we are doomed to continue to
| apply the same (ineffective) solution.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| Why is the changing terminology something that needs to
| be stopped? Does the language used to describe an
| identity need to be frozen in time?
| drdec wrote:
| > Why is the changing terminology something that needs to
| be stopped?
|
| It does not. If we were merely talking about the current
| young person slang word for something good (e.g. rad,
| sick, amazeballs, etc. (don't ask me for the current
| one)) no one cares that the terminology changes.
|
| But in this case each change comes with the same
| reasoning behind it. This indicates that the change has
| been ineffective and people ought to consider why that is
| and if there is something else that could be done instead
| or in addition to be more effective.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| I imagine they look similar to the gymnastics you did to come
| up with this comment.
| rottencupcakes wrote:
| I think this just demonstrates that changes to language are
| not sufficient to erase racism.
| layer8 wrote:
| It can even have the opposite effect.
| paulv wrote:
| Why'd you leave the most notable one out of your list?
| dmonitor wrote:
| I don't think that one was _ever_ "acceptable". That being
| said, literally every term after/including "African-
| American" in that list is socially acceptable. Not sure
| what they're going on about.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I'm not so sure. It sure gets used a lot in "Huckleberry
| Finn", even by people who aren't being malicious. (From
| my recollection, anyway. It's been ages since I read it.)
| blast wrote:
| The current norm is that it mustn't be said, even in a
| discussion of that class of words.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Seems like you're pointing to a singular imaginary boogeyman
| out to annoy you?
|
| You should try the better thing of actually considering the
| history of each of these.
|
| I won't deny that it can be annoying, but considering the
| specific why of each one is important. Necessary even.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| Yes exactly. The whole debate doesn't change the fact that
| certain people form the lower class, and those people tend to
| also have certain physical characteristics, and people don't
| like lower social class, which makes them dislike those
| characteristics.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| If you're truly mystified, and believe this is nothing more
| than PC linguistic gymnastics, I wonder why you started with
| "negroes"?
| runlevel1 wrote:
| Most of those are terms for different things.
|
| Not all people who are black are African American.
|
| Not all people of color are black.
| mugwumprk wrote:
| Looking at Elon Musk, some African Americans are white.
| pfg_ wrote:
| bipoc means a different thing than black. you should use the
| word that has the meaning you want.
| DonHopkins wrote:
| But using the word he really wanted to use would totally
| undermine his point, not to mention getting his post
| flagged.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| 90% of this list is less the slur treadmill and more the
| MLA/AP Stylebook version treadmill. Nobody's going to get mad
| at you for writing African American, unless you work for a
| newspaper, it's largely motivated by MLA and AP wanting to
| sell new books every year or two, same as how titles were
| underlined when I was in grade school and now they're
| italicized.
| spokaneplumb wrote:
| I thought the underlining thing had more to do with
| practical limitations of (most people's) handwriting and of
| common typewriters. Italics, when available, have been
| preferred for titles as far back as I'm aware.
| hwillis wrote:
| Absolutely insane equivocation. "Negro" has always been
| associated with slavery and that's why it was used up until
| even recently by people like Malcom X. "Colored" is
| associated with apartheid America in the same way.
|
| African American was a term used around return-to-africa
| movements and was always heavily associated with non-
| americanness.
|
| > they're not black, they're Black
|
| Somebody has never heard of proper nouns
|
| > they're not Black, they're People of Color
|
| Yes... nobody ever called indigenous people negroes. It's not
| the same thing as black. People use the phrase to talk about
| more than just black people.
|
| > they're not People of Color, they're BIPOC
|
| The I stands for indigenous.
| potatoman22 wrote:
| I think we should respect someone's preferred language for
| their identity. It's not that hard.
| coliveira wrote:
| Owners of social networks are terrified that they're
| accountable to society in any way. That explains why Musk and
| now Zuckerberg are so happy to throw away the last concept of
| accountability that society tried to create in the last
| decades. Basically they've taken over and are making all the
| rules.
| xdennis wrote:
| What is accountability? A platform picking what the truth is?
|
| Presumably you liked the fact checkers before because they
| were of the same political persuasion as you. Now that Trump
| is in power would you prefer if Musk/Zuckerberg placed right
| wing fact checkers in place and punished any opinion which is
| outside of the platform's Overton window?
|
| Musk removed picking fact checkers and replaced them with
| community notes. Zuckerberg says he'll do the same. Isn't
| that the societal accountability that you want?
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| I'm wary of the concepts of "fact-checking" and "mis-
| information," but there really is a lot of bullshit being
| said without any corresponding check on "yeah, but is that
| true?"
|
| Of course, if your worldview is sufficiently different from
| mine, we will disagree on what is true. But lying is lying.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| > The document explains to employees that epithets like
| "gays are freaks" and "immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces
| of shit" are now allowed under the new policy.
|
| but yeah, its definitely the fact checking that people are
| most upset about
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| I think these visitors from another planet would be more
| confused about the phrases "right/left wing _fact_
| checker"...
| blactuary wrote:
| He's a smart enough person that even asking that question makes
| me think the whole piece is written in bad faith. Yes, language
| evolves and has specific context and nuance.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| its not that complicated, he just doesn't think that hard
| about things when they support his conclusion. He's silently
| edited blog posts in the past to fix glaring holes that a 7th
| grader could catch after commenters on HN pointed them out.
| shanecleveland wrote:
| Interesting point to consider. I recently questioned the
| validity of a statement made by a newsletter publisher
| related to a repeatedly-debunked conspiracy theory that he
| used to attempt to bolster his point. It reeked of irony.
|
| I politely asked for a fact-check on it in the comments
| section, as I otherwise enjoyed and agreed with the
| substance of the post. He both removed the claim in
| question and my comment.
|
| I was unsure of how to feel about this. Those who had
| already read the post online or still had the original in
| their inbox were left with the misinformation from what
| they may consider a trusted source.
|
| I believed it would have been better to edit out the false
| information, leave my comment, and reply with clarification
| on the editing and why.
|
| Likewise, this practice of dynamically-edited online
| content is actually relevant to the topic of PG's post and
| the role it plays in replacing the traditional constraints
| on printed media.
| jahnu wrote:
| Indeed all I can think of now is Stewart Lee's bit about
| "political correctness gone mad"
|
| (some strong language and racist words used so maybe not safe
| for work or around kids)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_JCBmY9NGM
| n4r9 wrote:
| I was thinking about Stewart Lee as I attempted to read the
| article. It resonated especially strongly as I got to the
| part about how this awful "political correctness" is the
| reason that women are now able to report sexual assaul on
| campus. I wasn't able to make it much further. Hats off to
| those brave adventurers who made it through the whole
| thing.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| I read _Future Shock_ for the first time a few years ago, on
| about the 50th anniversary of its publication.
|
| One of the strongest impressions I had were that there were TK-
| count principle topics in the story:
|
| - The psychological impacts of an ever-increasing rate of
| change and information flow. Largely a dark view of the future,
| and one that's borne out pretty well.
|
| - Specific technological inventions or trends. Most of these
| have massively under-performed, with the obvious exception of
| information technologies, though _how_ that 's ultimately
| manifested is also strongly different from what was foreseen /
| predicted.
|
| - Social changes. Many of these read as laughably trite ...
| until I realised _how absolutely profound those changes had
| been._ The world of 1970 and of 2020 are remarkably different
| in gender roles, acceptance of nontraditional sexual
| orientations, race relations, even relationships of the young
| and old. I 'm not saying "perfect" or "better" or "worse", or
| even that FS is an especially good treatment of the topic, only
| that the situation is _different_. Moreso than the other
| categories, the book marks a boundary of sorts between and old
| and new world. We live in the new world, and the old one is all
| but unrecognisable.
|
| (Those in their 70s or older may well have a more visceral feel
| of this as they'd lived through that change as adults, though
| they're rapidly dying out.)
| jimkleiber wrote:
| To me this seems to be the most rambling, disorganized essay I've
| seen him write. I normally appreciate how he structures his
| arguments and in this one, I struggled to get past the first few
| sentences.
|
| Also maybe it's because he assumes there is a group of "the woke"
| instead of realizing that the people who self-identify as "woke"
| probably mean something really different than the ones who use
| "the woke" in a demeaning way.
|
| Wouldn't calling some a prig or woke, saying that the people are
| "self-righteously moralistic people who behave as if superior to
| others," in a way, be demonstrating the same behavior?
|
| Shouldn't the antidote to such a behavior be to see the humanity
| in others, coming closer to them rather than distancing from
| them?
|
| In that vein, I don't know what Paul's motivations were to write
| this post and I don't know why he lacked the normal structure
| with headings and such, I just hope that he's doing OK. I'm
| trying to understand the feelings he's experiencing, and maybe if
| I'm able to get through his writing I'll have a better sense. He
| seems a bit distraught, frustrated, ranting, not sure.
| swed420 wrote:
| The biggest flaw imo was the deafening silence around how
| "wokeness" is used as a tool by corporate Dems/Repubs and state
| agents of capital interests to distract from material issues
| and keep people divided over "culture war" / identity politics
| issues instead of uniting their focus on the former.
|
| No mention of how the recent resurgence coincided with the
| Occupy Wall St protests.
|
| No mention of how it was used to dismantle the Bernie Sanders
| campaigns.
|
| Etc.
| th19367 wrote:
| That is what most people avoid. Ramaswamy said it outright in
| his book but is now pro H1B. I have never heard Jordan
| Peterson or Douglas Murray mention any economic issues ever.
|
| There seems to be a secret penalty for bringing up _that_
| subject, unless you are running for MAGA like Ramaswamy and
| then possibly reverse opinion once people voted for you.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| > Also maybe it's because he assumes there is a group of "the
| woke" instead of realizing that the people who self-identify as
| "woke" probably mean something really different than the ones
| who use "the woke" in a demeaning way.
|
| Just mentioned this in another comment, but historically the
| only people who've actually identified as "woke" are black
| civil rights activists, who used it to mean that someone was
| aware and informed. I've never seen it used in any other
| context (or really by other people) until the latest culture
| war generals co-opted it as an insult for progressives and
| minorities.
|
| > Shouldn't the antidote to such a behavior be to see the
| humanity in others, coming closer to them rather than
| distancing from them?
|
| You would hope so, but I'm guessing the people who use civil
| rights-era slang to belittle activists probably don't care
| about the humanity those activists are trying to highlight and
| fight for.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| For me, Urban Dictionary[0] defines this issue much more clearly:
|
| > When this term became popularized, initially the meaning of
| this term was when an individual become more aware of the social
| injustice. Or basically, any current affairs related like biased,
| discrimination, or double-standards.
|
| > However, as time passed by, people started using this term
| recklessly, assigning this term to themselves or someone they
| know to boost their confidence and reassure them that they have
| the moral high grounds and are fighting for the better world. And
| sometimes even using it as a way to protect themselves from other
| people's opinion, by considering the 'outsider' as non-woke.
| While people that are in line with their belief as woke. Meaning
| that those 'outsiders' have been brainwash by the society and
| couldn't see the truth. Thus, filtering everything that the
| 'outsider' gives regardless whether it is rationale or not.
|
| > And as of now, the original meaning is slowly fading and
| instead, is used more often to term someone as hypocritical and
| think they are the 'enlightened' despite the fact that they are
| extremely close-minded and are unable to accept other people's
| criticism or different perspective. Especially considering the
| existence of echo chamber(media) that helped them to find other
| like-minded individuals, thus, further solidifying their
| 'progressive' opinion.
|
| > 1st paragraph >"Damn bro, I didn't realize racism is such a
| major issue in our country! I'm a woke now!"
|
| > 2nd paragraph > "I can't believe this. How are they so close-
| minded? Can't they see just how toxic our society is? The
| solution is so simple, yet they refused to change! I just don't
| understand!"
|
| > 3rd paragraph > "Fatphobic?! Misogyny?! What's wrong with
| preferring a thin woman?! And she is morbidly obese for god sake!
| Why should I be attracted to her?! Why should I lower myself
| while she refuse to better herself?! These woke people are a
| bunch of ridiculous hypocrite!"
|
| [0]: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Woke
| swed420 wrote:
| Also:
|
| _Of Course You Know What "Woke" Means_
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42683826
| morkalork wrote:
| I love when urban dictionary nails something well like this,
| it's very amusing. Like a gold nugget surrounded by trash. The
| only other thing that tickles me so is the occasional pseudo-
| profound 4chan green text.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I thought this was an interesting read. For me, it sparked the
| insight that wokeness parallels the rise and fall of the
| attention economics, with the premise that attention is the real
| bottleneck in social justice. It places an emphasis on awareness,
| and the solution is often left as an exercise to the observer.
|
| Political correctness and language codes are not new. I think
| what was new is the idea that people could rally around the
| banner of awareness, and thereby avoid disputes about solutions.
| This is why many of these topics lose momentum once their
| followers get the attention and have to deal with the hard and
| less popular questions of how to fix something.
| forgotacc240419 wrote:
| There was a variety of causes that gained prominence ~2015 when
| Bernie Sanders came much closer to challenging Hillary Clinton
| than anyone expected. The Democrat party establishment picked
| the wishy washy meaningless bits out and focused on them while
| keeping away from the more challenging economic issues that
| would actually require their ideologies to adapt
|
| I think what most people call "woke" is probably just a
| reaction to the obvious emptiness of many of the things
| politicians like Kamala Harris chose to focus on whilst
| ignoring more concrete issues. A lot of it was stuff there
| never was a solution for.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I mean, that's part of it. The culture war is useful to both
| US political parties, because they both have a bourgeois
| class interest and need something to keep people invested in
| politics for the sake of their political legitimacy, but at
| the same time need to prevent them from gaining class
| consciousness or becoming involved in class politics.
|
| Put another way: the culture war (as woke vs. anti-woke)
| divides the electorate, but in a way that lets them be
| parceled out between two factions of the ruling class, rather
| than aligning any of them against the ruling class.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Criminalization of homelessness is probably the most stark
| example of class warfare in society today. And agitation
| against these policies is absolutely called "woke" by the
| right.
|
| The idea that wokeness is in contrast to class-based
| advocacy is not correct. The right will happily call class-
| based advocacy "woke" until the cows come home.
| NoGravitas wrote:
| The right will call class-based advocacy "woke", but that
| doesn't mean that centrist Democrats are going to adopt
| it to spite them. Criminalization of homelessness is at
| its most vicious in cities with Democratic mayors.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Sure. The leaders within the Democratic party are not
| especially good advocates for the homeless. They are
| similarly not terribly good advocates for a lot of
| suffering groups. Despite all the hay about "defund the
| police", it didn't actually end up materializing as
| policy and we saw Biden explicitly reject it in a State
| of the Union.
|
| It is not true that the establishment left is using
| "woke" advocacy to avoid having to talk about class. It
| is also not true that if the left stopped talking about
| "woke" concepts that the right would suddenly get on
| board with class advocacy.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| This ties back to my idea that "wokeness" is an ideology
| that centers awareness, not solutions. Everyone in San
| Francisco is sufficiently aware that homelessness is a
| problem. Nobody really advocates for police brutality or
| shooting innocents as a positive good.
|
| However, the debate constantly returns to the the
| question of how important these issues are on an
| imaginary scale that doesn't exist, instead of what we
| should be doing out.
|
| Bob thinks police brutality ranks 9.8 on Bob's
| "importance scale". Sue thinks it ranks 7.6 on Sue's
| "importance scale". Arguing about the numbers and scales
| is completely irrelevant, and an excuse to attack someone
| else's position instead of proposing a solution you have
| to advocate for and defend. It is a strategy of taking
| the fight to the enemy.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I think it is reasonable to claim that there is a general
| bias towards awareness over material solutions among
| establishment liberals. I don't really think that this is
| "wokeness". I'd wager that almost everybody who uses the
| term would say that an activist who advocates for an
| extreme wealth tax and a ban on corporate landlording
| with money redistributed to the homeless is "more woke"
| than a mayor who funds homeless shelters to a degree but
| also regularly sends cops to clear out camp sites where
| homeless people are sleeping.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I agree with what you said, but I still think performance
| and moralizing is the central aspect.
|
| In your hierarchy, I think most people would also agree
| that an activist blogging about using the world
| "unhoused" instead of "homeless" is more woke than the
| one advocating for the wealth tax.
|
| Similarly, someone arguing for wealth tax and transfer on
| moral grounds is more woke than someone who argues the
| identical policy saying it will result in long term cost
| savings.
| daveguy wrote:
| Why do you put more emphasis on the language than the
| proposed solutions. Is that to control the speech?
| cvwright wrote:
| It goes back even further than that.
|
| There seemed to be a surge in 2011 too, when it became
| apparent that the Obama administration was going to let the
| big banks off the hook for the financial crisis.
| pwillia7 wrote:
| The Unabomber manifesto talks about this a surprising amount
| too -- https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
| srv/national/longterm/unab...
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I have read it before but which part?
| qntty wrote:
| _Leftists may claim that their activism is motivated by
| compassion or by moral principles, and moral principle does
| play a role for the leftist of the oversocialized type. But
| compassion and moral principle cannot be the main motives
| for leftist activism. Hostility is too prominent a
| component of leftist behavior; so is the drive for power.
| Moreover, much leftist behavior is not rationally
| calculated to be of benefit to the people whom the leftists
| claim to be trying to help. For example, if one believes
| that affirmative action is good for black people, does it
| make sense to demand affirmative action in hostile or
| dogmatic terms? Obviously it would be more productive to
| take a diplomatic and conciliatory approach that would make
| at least verbal and symbolic concessions to white people
| who think that affirmative action discriminates against
| them. But leftist activists do not take such an approach
| because it would not satisfy their emotional needs. Helping
| black people is not their real goal. Instead, race problems
| serve as an excuse for them to express their own hostility
| and frustrated need for power. In doing so they actually
| harm black people, because the activists' hostile attitude
| toward the white majority tends to intensify race hatred._
| foldr wrote:
| Hmm, this is a completely generic and unreflective rant about
| 'wokeness' that could have been cobbled together from YouTube
| comments and Jeremy Clarkson columns. What is PG thinking?
|
| The most striking thing about it is that it makes absolutely no
| attempt to consider how there might be a link between the
| undeniable social progress that's been made on race and gender
| over the past decades and the aspects of 'wokeness' that PG finds
| distasteful. He simply assumes that you can automatically get all
| of the progress without any of the stuff he doesn't like.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > What is PG thinking?
|
| My assumption would be that he's doing a performative hard
| right turn like pretty much every other tech billionaire this
| week in order to make nice with the incoming lunatic
| administration.
| tappdarden wrote:
| he made a hard right turn a decade or more ago. Its not just
| now.
|
| source: his other blog posts.
| teach wrote:
| In "The Age of the Essay"[0], Paul writes:
|
| "An essay is something you write to try to figure something
| out.
|
| "Figure out what? You don't know yet. And so you can't begin
| with a thesis, because you don't have one, and may never have
| one. An essay doesn't begin with a statement, but with a
| question. In a real essay, you don't take a position and defend
| it. You notice a door that's ajar, and you open it and walk in
| to see what's inside.
|
| "If all you want to do is figure things out, why do you need to
| write anything, though? Why not just sit and think? Well, there
| precisely is Montaigne's great discovery. Expressing ideas
| helps to form them. Indeed, helps is far too weak a word. Most
| of what ends up in my essays I only thought of when I sat down
| to write them. That's why I write them."
|
| So there's your answer. PG is thinking "This is something I
| don't know; I should write an essay to figure out an answer."
|
| It also makes sense to me that when he writes an essay
| connected to an area he knows well (like startups), the result
| is maybe full of unique perspectives and is broadly
| insightful/useful. Whereas an essay on wokeness isn't likely to
| bring much to the table to anyone who has been paying attention
| to diversity for several years.
|
| Maybe it's still useful to engineers who've been living under a
| rock and haven't paid any attention at all; I don't know.
|
| [0] https://www.paulgraham.com/essay.html
| foldr wrote:
| That's a good reason to _write_ an essay. I think the present
| case illustrates that it 's not a sufficient reason to
| publish it.
| stby wrote:
| This just reads like the usual anti-intellectualism.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| That's really all Silicon Valley has to offer at this point.
|
| They are our betters and we should follow them without
| question.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > They are our betters and we should follow them without
| question.
|
| Wasn't this basically the messaging of the Harris/Walz
| campaign? Perhaps if not directly then through the commentary
| around it.
| Cornbilly wrote:
| I'm not sure. I don't listen to much political commentary
| outside of the stuff shoved in my face.
|
| What gave you that feeling from the Harris campaign?
| n4r9 wrote:
| Trump suggested he was "anointed by God" to serve a second
| term. I can't think of anything that says "I'm better than
| you" than that.
| let_me_post_0 wrote:
| Crazy and rather ironic that an essay from pg himself gets
| flagged no HN.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| [flagged]
| astine wrote:
| Presumably because he owns the site. You would think this
| would be the one place that PG didn't get much pushback on
| his opinions. I'm not too surprised though; he hasn't been
| very involved here for years so the culture has shifted.
| djur wrote:
| I don't think he would have written this 10, even 5 years
| ago. It only really started becoming a trendy viewpoint in
| his social circles recently.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I think the big shift was in cancel culture, doxing,
| swatting, and all that stuff starting to rise, which is
| all relatively recent.
|
| A moralistic ideology acting holier than thou is nothing
| new. In the 80s (and for sure time after) evangelicals
| had their "Moral Majority."
|
| But nobody really cares until an ideology starts
| regularly driving harmful actions, at which point there
| starts to be a lot more push back.
| djur wrote:
| Swatting and doxing aren't ideologically-aligned actions,
| though. They certainly don't have anything in particular
| to do with "woke".
| let_me_post_0 wrote:
| That's not true. PG has been ranting about wokeness for
| quite a long time already. I don't think you quite
| understand the nuance of a lot of these definitions. PG
| isn't a conservative MAGA guy nor a bigot. He just does
| not like how the woke crowd goes about trying to affect
| social change and how unsavory types use the woke crowd
| to achieve their political goals.
| djur wrote:
| I've read his earlier writings on the topic and they are
| substantially less conspiratorial and influenced by
| neoreactionary thought. He even previously used the term
| "prig" in this 2004 article:
|
| https://paulgraham.com/say.html
|
| This is top to bottom a more thoughtful, nuanced take on
| essentially the same topic. The main difference is that
| saying stuff like "class of bureaucrats pursu[ing] a woke
| agenda" and "woke mind-virus" is fashionable among SV
| elites today, and it was not in 2004.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| I imagine if you polled all HN users vastly more would
| sympathise with this essay than not. But the YC flag (and
| voting) system still seems relatively straightforward, and
| consequently enables small groups of activists to have
| quite a significant capability to censor (or promote)
| topics/comments.
|
| This is one reason I think community notes style algorithms
| is where we'll probably see pretty much all community
| voting/moderation head over time. It's just objectively
| better since it basically fixes this 'glitch' in
| straightforward systems.
| foldr wrote:
| HN also has vouching, so a small minority of flaggers
| shouldn't be able to censor a topic that a large number
| of HNers want to read about.
|
| I think this got flagged initially because PG doesn't
| have anything to say about 'wokeness' that we have not
| heard many times before. He doesn't like it (big
| surprise) for exactly the reasons that you'd expect
| someone like him not to like it.
| ANewFormation wrote:
| Vouching relies on visibilty while flagging dramatically
| reduces visibility.
| let_me_post_0 wrote:
| Appeal to authority needs to be used with prudence. I
| wouldn't trust pg on a medical topic, but I have no issue
| hearing what he has to say on this particular topic because
| as far as I am concerned academic credentials do not give you
| a better understanding of the contemporary social climate.
|
| For that matter Trump and MAGA have no degrees in psychology
| and sociology. Despite this, they were much more in tune with
| the American public than the Democrats with their fake
| intellectualism.
| forgetfreeman wrote:
| I mean that's fine, that's the kind of distinction everyone
| has to make for themselves. Personally I haven't
| encountered anything from PG that conveyed meaningful
| information to me at any point in the last decade so this
| is more a continuation of ignoring a zero value content
| stream than anything else. Put simply I don't need a
| lecture from PG regardless of topic.
| Leary wrote:
| I think there's a fascinating throughline from older Christian
| moral enforcement to what the essay calls "wokeness."
| Historically, a lot of Christian movements had the same impulse
| to legislate language and behaviors--just grounded in sin rather
| than privilege. For instance, the 19th-century American Puritans
| famously policed each other's speech and actions because the
| stakes were framed as eternal salvation versus damnation. That
| social dynamic--where the "righteous" person gains status by
| exposing the lapses of others--feels remarkably similar to what
| we see now with "cancellations" on social media.
| xkcd-sucks wrote:
| fr Nathaniel Hawthorne is immensely relevant in the present day
| narag wrote:
| Christians are so new. I wonder why Pharisees aren't mentioned
| more often when bringing in this topic.
|
| Actually, "pharisaical" is the dictionary definition for this
| kind of hypocrisy.
| freedomben wrote:
| My guess would be because most of the audience it's said to
| are much more familiar with Christianity than with 0000s
| Judaism. If the person hearing the comparison don't know
| anything about the operand then for them it becomes a
| meaningless comparison.
| aubanel wrote:
| If anyone's familiar with Christianism they will be also
| familiar with Pharisians, mentioned probably mentioned more
| frequently in the New Testament than the old (Jesus often
| recused their ways)
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| I was raised Christian and yes, the Pharisees were not
| just taught about, but a subject of focus.
|
| This makes the modern American strain of Christianity all
| the more puzzling to me, with how it in many ways shares
| more with the Pharisees than it does with the religion's
| namesake, but that's a topic for a different post.
| o11c wrote:
| Ehh ... it's indisputable that in $CURRENTYEAR that there
| are a _lot_ of people whose only experience with
| Christianity is "things people said on the Internet".
|
| If many random readers won't understand a reference to
| "Pharisee", and people trying to make a point stop using
| it as a result, then even fewer Internet-educated readers
| will get the reference.
| dang wrote:
| Probably because this topic is American and it's the history
| of American Christianity that's being referenced.
| ComposedPattern wrote:
| An optimistic explanation is that they don't want to be
| antisemitic. The present-day term for "Pharisee" is "Jew."
| The early rabbis who created Judaism as we know it were
| Pharisees, and theirs was the only first-century Jewish sect
| which survived until today. You can even see the alternation
| between "Pharisee" and "Jew" in The New Testament. For
| instance, in some verses it criticizes the Pharisees for
| washing their hands before eating, whereas in others it
| levies the same complaint against Jews generally: https://www
| .biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2011%3A38%...
| CooCooCaCha wrote:
| The difference here is people are trying to address people's
| actual life experiences instead of something they believe based
| on faith.
| ImHereToVote wrote:
| Or so they believe
| commandlinefan wrote:
| I grew up in the 80's - I felt exactly the same about
| evangelicals then as I feel about the woke today.
| gooseyard wrote:
| an interesting article on this topic:
| https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2024/02/more-christian-th...
| thegrim33 wrote:
| [flagged]
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Not exactly. The article doesn't try to draw a causative link
| between Christianity in particular to "wokeness".
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't comment on whether someone read an article.
| "Did you even read the article? It mentions that" can be
| shortened to "The article mentions that."_"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| grahamj wrote:
| The difference is religion's justification is the words of a
| fictitious being whereas "wokeness" stems from principles of
| equality and tolerance.
|
| Surely some adherents of each use it to feel righeous/superior,
| but in only one case is it actually justified.
| svieira wrote:
| Where do these principles of equality and tolerance come
| from? Are they descriptions of a stochastic processes
| produced by one of an infinite series of marble machines, or
| do they have a deeper root in something that is true for all
| places and times (I'll even accept roots in something that is
| true (not just acceptable) for this time, for all people
| within this time)?
| FarmerPotato wrote:
| I know what you're trying to say--But also, the
| (unintentional?) irony makes me chuckle:
|
| "Sure, my group sounds self-righteous, but our view _is_
| justifiably superior. "
|
| Nobody wins a shouting match.
| prewett wrote:
| The book "American Nations", whose basic idea is that the US +
| Canada is composed of 12 cultural "nations", also observes that
| the Puritans were rather intolerant. The Puritan culture
| influenced what he calls "Yankeedom" (New England west to
| Minnesota) and the "Left Coast", which was settled by Yankee
| shipping. My impression is that these two areas are the most
| "woke"; it seems that Puritan intolerance casts a long shadow,
| even though those areas rejected orthodox Christianity a long
| time ago.
| dpe82 wrote:
| Right: it's worth noting the Puritans departed England in
| part because they were, basically, zealous pains in the butt
| who didn't get along well with contemporary English society.
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| My 2 cents is that this book was one of the worst excuses for
| historical analysis I've ever read (not that the author is
| even a historian; he's a journalist). It felt closer to
| astrology or a Buzzfeed quiz about what Harry Potter house
| you belong to than anything of actual value. It reminded me
| of a litany of corporate workshops I've experienced, where
| the author comes up with an interesting hook and then works
| backwards to support their conclusions. Great for selling a
| story to those looking for intellectually empty calories.
| Pretty much garbage otherwise.
| int_19h wrote:
| The parallels between the "original sin" in Christian theology
| and "... privilege" in social justice discourse are pretty
| obvious.
|
| I also find it rather amusing that the social justice movement
| tends to be so US-centric - i.e. focusing on the issues that
| are specific to or manifest most strongly in US, and then
| projecting that focus outwards, sometimes to the point of
| cultural intrusiveness (like that whole "Latinx" thing which
| seems to be nearly universally reviled outside of US).
|
| At the same time many people sincerely believe that US is not
| just a bad country - I'm fine with this as a matter of
| subjective judgment, and share some of it even - but that it's
| particularly bad in a way that no other country is. It's almost
| as if someone took American exceptionalism and flipped the
| sign. Which kinda makes me wonder if that is really what's
| happening here.
| Frummy wrote:
| It's simple, if you can do a special rain dance that makes you
| not have to draw back your bottom line, you will do it every day
| of the week whether you're a billion dollar corporation or a 500
| year old university
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| [flagged]
| runjake wrote:
| Do you have any points of substance you can elaborate with? I
| would genuinely like to hear your argument.
| e_i_pi_2 wrote:
| Not OP, but personally it's just sad to see someone that you
| view as a historically great mind getting distracted by
| nonsense, like if a great mathematician suddenly stopped
| their research to focus on flat earth and contrails
| diggan wrote:
| > view as a historically great mind getting distracted by
| nonsense
|
| Are you saying that thinking about "wokeness" is a
| distraction, regardless of the person? Or that specifically
| PG thinking about "wokeness" is a distraction? Or maybe
| even "thinking about wokeness in that way" is the
| distraction?
|
| It seems like if "wokeness" is important, then having more
| people thinking about it is better, regardless of their
| outcome from thinking about it. If "wokeness" isn't
| important at all, I'd totally understand you, but seems
| there are way more people out there thinking about it more
| than PG, since it's the first time I see him say anything
| about it at all.
| runjake wrote:
| Thanks for engaging. Is it nonsense if it greatly affects
| government and workplace policies? Especially now at a time
| where the incoming POTUS has demonstrated a lack of respect
| for a wide swath of people.
|
| (Just to be clear, despite the above comment, I do not
| align with "wokeness".)
| chen_dev wrote:
| This comment is kinda harsh isn't it? Do you have anything
| specific from his words to support:
|
| > ... mind become filled with mush
|
| > desperate pledge of allegiance ...
| Miner49er wrote:
| I think it's just the fact he spends this much time thinking
| about wokeness. His whole argument is it's unimportant and
| performative, so then why did he spend all this time writing
| an article about it?
| haswell wrote:
| > _His whole argument is it 's unimportant and
| performative, so then why did he spend all this time
| writing an article about it?_
|
| Arguably because a large portion of the population doesn't
| agree that it's unimportant and performative. Current
| culture is captured by the concept and collectively spends
| a massive amount of time worrying about it.
|
| If you personally feel that this is a waste of time, how
| else do you communicate that if not by spending time
| thinking and writing about it?
|
| I also think most meetings are a complete waste of time.
| The fact that many other people feel meetings are important
| directly impacts me, and just believing that they're a
| waste isn't good enough. It's necessary to actively push
| against something if you think that thing needs to change.
| mike_hearn wrote:
| He doesn't argue it's unimportant. If you took that away
| from the essay you didn't read it closely enough because it
| contains sentences like:
|
| _" College students larp. It's their nature. It's usually
| harmless. But larping morality turned out to be a poisonous
| combination."_
|
| If you're describing something as poisonous, especially if
| it's the behavior of a large group of people, then you're
| saying it's important.
| codexb wrote:
| Because it comes with very real consequences, sometimes
| even criminal now.
| diggan wrote:
| > the fact he spends this much time thinking about wokeness
|
| This is the first and only article I recall from PG about
| wokeness, is it part of some anthology that I've missed or
| where are you getting the "this much time" part from?
| Devasta wrote:
| https://x.com/paulg/status/1878495314975277093
|
| Here he is with receipts that he has been talking about
| wokeness like a weirdo for close to a decade now.
| diggan wrote:
| Aha, on Twitter, makes sense I'd miss it. I've mostly
| been thinking of Twitter as a place for posting random
| thoughts, and I thought most others saw it like that too,
| not like a place for serious thinking/discussions. I
| guess I was wrong.
| cle wrote:
| I can't help but wonder if this is intentionally ironic.
|
| (From TFA: "There's a certain kind of person who's attracted to
| a shallow, exacting kind of moral purity, and who demonstrates
| his purity by attacking anyone who breaks the rules.")
| malcolmgreaves wrote:
| I think it's intentional and ironic. But I don't think PG
| realizes what he did. I throughly believe he's in the space
| of "I can do it because i am morally superior. But other
| folks can't because they don't get it like I do." I get this
| feeling from reading not just this, but his other essays too.
| chen_dev wrote:
| Not sure about 'I can do it because I am morally superior'.
| Is it required to be morally superior to have an opposing
| view?
|
| > other folks can't because they don't get it like I do
|
| His point of view undoubtedly resonates with 'some folks'.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| > I can do it because i am morally superior. But other
| folks can't because they don't get it like I do.
|
| I think it's more of "I can do it because I can afford it.
| But other folks can't because they need their job (or
| something similar)."
| thingsilearned wrote:
| @malcomgreaves I'm not sure you caught the intended target
| of @cle's comment. I believe he was talking about your
| comment being the thing he thought may be intentionally
| ironic, not PG's essay.
|
| One of the main points in the essay: "The problem with
| political correctness was not that it focused on
| marginalized groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in
| which it did so"
|
| And your comment is a classic example of that behavior.
| pickledish wrote:
| (regardless of the merit of your criticism, this comment was at
| least very funny to me, so thank you for that)
| 23B1 wrote:
| I found the essay cogent and accessible. He's very active
| online and engages in good faith even with his detractors.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Whatever else you think of him, he's an incredibly concise
| and persuasive writer. Even on topic I disagree with him on,
| I can't fault his reasoning or presentation.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| >Whatever else you think of him, he's an incredibly concise
| and persuasive writer.
|
| This is not a concise essay.
| mempko wrote:
| There is nothing logical about his essay. There is no
| reasoning. It's kind of all over the place. It's kind of a
| desperate essay.
| antithesizer wrote:
| Paul Graham was never smart. He was always just a successful
| guy whom lots of naive student mistook for a guru on account of
| his success. That happens a lot.
|
| Young people in need of guidance would do well to read the
| classics and disregard everyone with a pulse.
| farleykr wrote:
| I'm assuming you're exaggerating for effect at least a little
| but with that caveat I couldn't agree more. CS Lewis has a
| great argument for this in his introduction to Athanasius' On
| the Incarnation. Paraphrasing his argument: Time naturally
| filters out the nonsense and what we're left with are the
| books that are worth reading by virtue of the fact that they
| have stood the test of time. Truth or at least the closest we
| can get to it naturally bubbles up to the surface over time.
|
| https://thecslewis-studygroup.org/the-c-s-lewis-study-
| group/...
| daseiner1 wrote:
| Taleb is a strong proponent of this as well. Related to the
| "Lindy Effect"
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lindy_effect
| reubenmorais wrote:
| Counterpoint: all the nonsense in millennia old religious
| texts that still wastes people's time to this day.
| redundantly wrote:
| Aye, but that nonsense benefits religious authorities and
| politicians, it has value to them, hence its staying
| power.
| beardyw wrote:
| You must have spent a lot of time studying them to reach
| your conclusion.
| programjames wrote:
| This is horrible advice if you want to work on anything
| innovative. You don't have time to wait for things to
| bubble up. For example, physics textbooks from the early
| 1900s rarely use linear algebra, even if they're written
| well.
| farleykr wrote:
| Point taken. I wouldn't recommend avoiding anything
| modern across the board and neither does CS Lewis. And
| innovation is great but I would guard against assuming
| that innovation is always positive and a step in the
| right direction even if not directly. It's also true that
| many old texts, religious or otherwise, contain timeless
| wisdom that can inform innovative efforts. And I'm not
| talking about old by many centuries either. For example,
| I think many of the hacker types that frequent HN and
| seek to build something innovative would probably benefit
| from reading some of Alan Turing's writings. On the other
| end of the spectrum, maybe Sam Altman could benefit from
| studying the story of the tower of Babel.
| echelon wrote:
| Both of you are attacking pg's character, yet he's done no
| wrong here.
|
| > These new administrators could often be recognized by the
| word "inclusion" in their titles. Within institutions this
| was the preferred euphemism for wokeness; a new list of
| banned words, for example, would usually be called an
| "inclusive language guide."
|
| As an LGBT Latino, I feel gross when people step up to
| "include" me. The "LatinX" thing is just sick, and the fake
| "pride" bullshit makes me feel unbelievably cheapened. Not
| all gays or bis are the same. I don't go around screaming
| "yass qween", listen to Beyonce, or watch Ru Paul. But we're
| token represented like that. I hate everything about it.
|
| Superficial facets of my "identity" have been commoditized
| and weaponized. (I'd say "appropriated", but that'd only be
| the case if this wasn't a complete cartoon representation.)
|
| I've been called a "fag" once in public for kissing a guy.
| Whatever.
|
| My wife has been called cis-scum (despite the fact she's
| trans!), I've been made to write software to deny grants to
| whites and men [1], I've been told I can't recommend people
| for hire because they weren't "diverse", I've been taught by
| my company my important "LatinX heritage" and even got some
| swag for it, I've had a ton of completely irrelevant people
| make my "identity" into a battle ground, etc. etc etc. I
| can't count the number of times this surfaces in my life in
| an abrasive and intrusive way.
|
| I felt more at home in the world before 2010 than in the
| world today that supposedly "embraces my diversity".
|
| [1] Restaurant Revitalization Fund, look it up.
| pydry wrote:
| He's smart about startups and tech but as soon as he starts
| to talk about politics or philosophy he gets _very_ 2
| dimensional _very_ quickly.
|
| In much the same way people who build useless startups never
| talk to any actual customers, Paul Graham wouldnt be seen
| dead with the types of 1970s black activists from Harlem who
| _actually_ originated the term "woke" (to refer to e.g.
| police brutality).
|
| Im sure he knows plenty of the rich, white moral posturers
| who run large corporations and pride themselves on making a
| rainbow version of their company's logo for use outside of
| middle eastern markets, though.
| izend wrote:
| "He then received a Master of Science in 1988, and a Doctor
| of Philosophy in 1990, both in computer science from Harvard
| University."
|
| Anyone with a PhD Comp Sci from Harvard is automatically very
| smart in my mind, unless by "smart" you mean something
| else...
| lincon127 wrote:
| So this is completely out of his ballpark, and he's
| commenting on it publicly? Seems pretty stupid to me
| nancyminusone wrote:
| You have fallen for the classic blunder. Just because
| someone is smart in area X does not mean they have the same
| proficiency in Y.
| izend wrote:
| Then explicitly say "PG should stick to topics in his
| domain", don't use a generic term that indicates low
| IQ...
| gilleain wrote:
| So I've been thinking about this recently and come to the
| conclusion that 'smart' and 'stupid' are just extremes of
| behaviour and capability.
|
| That is, people have clever _moments_ - some more than
| others perhaps - but can equally have stupid ones. We
| convenientally flatten the statistics into a boolean.
|
| For example, recently someone considered to have made a lot
| of smart decisions in his life has been found to have payed
| others to rank his character up in a video game so he can
| brag about it. Everyone has stupid moments.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| If pg spent any of his time talking about actual computer
| science topics instead of the dull pablum and oligarch
| apologia he outputs today, we'd all be better served.
| gedpeck wrote:
| He's smart in Computer Science. I studied mathematics in
| graduate school. Lots of smart people in my class...in
| mathematics. What I've experienced since graduate school is
| people being smart in their area of expertise thinking that
| smartness automatically extends to other areas. Arrogance
| and stupidity shine brightest when such people write
| authoritatively on areas they haven't actually studied in
| any real depth.
| saghm wrote:
| > He was always just a successful guy whom lots of naive
| student mistook for a guru on account of his success. That
| happens a lot.
|
| Agreed. People seem to think that success is deterministic,
| so following the advice of successful people will lead them
| to success, rather than there being any number of other
| factors that might make someone who might make choices with
| the highest chance of success end up not succeeding, or
| someone who might make choices that aren't actually that
| smart end up becoming successful in spite of that. The worst
| part of this is that it's not just the students who naively
| believe this, but the successful people themselves. When
| someone mistakenly thinks that their own success is solely
| attributable to your own superior intellect or work ethic,
| it's not surprising that they end up advocating for policies
| that treat people in unfortunate circumstances as being not
| worth trying to help.
| dang wrote:
| Paul Graham is one of the smartest people I've ever met,
| hands down, not a close call.
|
| If I know propositional logic, one of two things follows:
| either (1) I've never met any smart people, or (2) you've
| jumped to a false conclusion.
|
| Either way, you shouldn't be posting personal attacks to HN.
| msabalau wrote:
| Graham's early essays on, say, the ambitions of cities or
| hackers and painters, were interesting, original, were
| grounded in his personal experiences, and were focused in
| scope.
|
| This latest mush makes extravagant claims about the evolution
| of society over the course over a 70 year period, seems
| shocked that news rooms might have style guides, and suggests
| that recent campus life can somehow be meaningfully be
| compared to the Cultural Revolution.
|
| It observes many trends, perhaps some accurately, but
| observes everything superficially.
|
| Pragmatically, what Graham suggests at the end is reasonable
| --pluralism combined with openness to the ideas of others
| about morality. I don't know that we needed 6000 words of
| vague dyspeptic musings to get there.
|
| He has demonstrated the ability to write and think more
| clearly than this. It is reasonable for someone to observe
| this and be disappointed.
| dismalaf wrote:
| This is a ridiculous comment. I don't know if you've noticed
| but a lot of what's happening in the entire western world
| politically is a result of the backlash against wokeness and
| leftist economics.
|
| Without wokeness there is no Trump, and the far right in Europe
| would still be marginal.
|
| Edit - it's funny, just yesterday I was listening to a podcast
| where Peter Thiel was lamenting the lack of introspection on
| the left. Lots of comments proving it correct.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| Are you accusing the people who fight against Trump's
| politics and who vote against him to have put him in power?
| Also, what "leftist economics" are you talking about?
|
| Now _this_ is a ridiculous comment.
|
| It reads just like " _antifascists are the new fascists_ "
| discourses. It's absurd.
| daseiner1 wrote:
| When a vocal, extreme minority of the left drives things
| towards absurdity, there is likely to be an acute
| reactionary response.
| dismalaf wrote:
| A bunch of people who previously voted left are now voting
| right. Ask yourself why.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| I know why: they're a bunch of stupid wannabe rich people
| who want to punish "others" for being different. They
| like it that Trump can be mean to people, rape people,
| cut off funds for states that vote Dem -- all without
| consequence.
|
| Yup, because they're a bunch of losers at life, who have
| not compassion and, therefore, no happiness. They only
| have smugness and riches, and those don't bring
| happiness.
| tinyplanets wrote:
| Massive disinformation campaigns that have occurred over
| the past 10 to 15 years.
| normalaccess wrote:
| Trump is the "solution" to the problem of militant radical
| Neo-Marxism or whatever you want to call it. He exist in a
| world where the Overton window sits comfortably over the
| destruction of the entire western world by the hand of
| communists bent on burning down the world to rule over the
| ashes. When everything is bent into identity politics, for
| good or ill those that can manage their image will thrive.
| And Trump is _very good_ at managing the Trump brand.
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| This isn't the Cold War and ideology is for simpletons.
|
| I may have to write a book to educate people about how
| the world really works.
|
| Thanks for the motivation.
| normalaccess wrote:
| You're welcome. But until then your comment has nothing
| of value for me to digest that is relevant to the
| conversation.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| > He exist in a world where the Overton window sits
| comfortably over the destruction of the entire western
| world by the hand of communists bent on burning down the
| world to rule over the ashes.
|
| In which alternative reality is that happening? Where in
| the western world are communists in power?
| normalaccess wrote:
| I'm amused that it's so hard to see but as a single
| example take the current situation happening in the UK.
| There have been organized child human trafficking rings
| that have been allowed to operate with complete impunity
| due to the race of the participants.
|
| If you speak out about the injustice you are deemed a far
| right extremist and a raciest and given a harsher
| sentence than the pedophiles that are raping children.
|
| Now you might see that as unrelated but In my option it's
| exactly the sort of thing that is emblematic of the
| radical left being in power. There is an inversion of
| justice to correct for the "demon of whiteness".
| peterpost2 wrote:
| >If you speak out about the injustice you are deemed a
| far right extremist and a raciest and given a harsher
| sentence than the pedophiles that are raping children.
|
| I would like to see a source for this.
| TinkersW wrote:
| Because they are helping Trump, their behavior is often so
| insane it drives people into his camp who might have
| otherwise been somewhere in the middle.
|
| Look at the surveys done of swing voters in the last
| election, they biggest single item was social issues such
| as trans.
|
| Also just read the linked article(seems reasonable enough,
| though I don't necessarily agree with all of it), and the
| moralistic responses attacking him personally, instead of
| responding by pointing with the part they disagree with,
| this is a logical fallacy.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| What big leftist economics policies have been enacted in the
| West recently?
| dismalaf wrote:
| Massive expansionist post-Covid fiscal policy and QE that
| created the inflationary crisis. Mass immigration (yes
| immigration is an economic policy).
| peterpost2 wrote:
| Immigration was kicked off long before recent times and
| used to largely be a right-wing policy.
| dismalaf wrote:
| The rate of immigration and our ability to assimilate
| immigrants matters.
| peterpost2 wrote:
| That is not a relevant answer to my statement.
| tpm wrote:
| Immigration is not leftist, it degrades value of labor.
| It's liberal policy - in the US this is conflated with
| left, but elsewhere liberal stands for individualist
| policies, while left is more or less socialist, the exact
| opposite.
| petsfed wrote:
| Certain kinds of leftist are anti-immigration. But
| anarchists and those in favor of international communism
| are aggressively (sometimes militantly) opposed to the
| concept of national borders or any meaningful
| restrictions on the movements of people.
| contagiousflow wrote:
| And were the people making pro immigration policies in
| the west in favour of "international communism", or
| liberal capitalism?
| tpm wrote:
| Those groups are not anywhere close to wielding power or
| influencing govs decisions.
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| What nonsense is this? The St. Louis Federal Reserve
| documented most inflation was due to profit seeking
| (gouging), not QE--that's right wing libertarian drivel.
| dismalaf wrote:
| Profit seeking is normal behaviour. The economic system
| normally keeps it in check through competition. If it's
| not kept in check it's because of the economic
| conditions.
| peterpost2 wrote:
| I've not seen the economic system keeping it in check
| through competition in my lifetime and I don't think it
| did historically.
| hindsightbias wrote:
| All those commie socialist corporate bailouts?
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| 2008 TARP for Wall Street? Corporate tax breaks that were
| unfunded and yielded $2 trillion in cash reserves
| decidedly not funneled down to working people. Sounds
| like socialism for institutions too big to fail, but not
| for people who needed it (70% of Americans with less than
| $1,000 in savings for emergencies).
|
| How long will this situation continue before the house of
| cards tumbles down?
| peterpost2 wrote:
| Same for yours, You can hardly call the free market and
| privatization policies that the western europe has been going
| through these last three decades "Leftish economics"
| MrMcCall wrote:
| Without wokeness, Trump et al would've already steamrolled
| us.
|
| Being woke is to be aware of inequalities between
| ethnicities, religions, and classes. Being woke is to be
| aware of the fact that the planet is overheating due to our
| unfettered capitalism.
|
| You calling something ridiculous is what is ridiculous,
| friend.
|
| Yeah, what the rich need is more tax breaks {sarcasm}.
|
| The world is full of people too stupid to know how stupid
| they are. They need to wake the fuck up.
| EarthAmbassador wrote:
| This comment is historically and intellectually uninformed,
| i.e., devoid of understanding about the antecedents and
| relationships between what is driving todays rise of the
| right, which is a populist counterrevolution to the 60s and
| beyond's postmodernism-fueled culture wars, which elevated
| the marginalized and women, and served as a strategic
| distraction while the elite locked in wealth extract ion from
| below and minority rule by manufacturing a pervasive
| epistemic crisis.
| petsfed wrote:
| I think this is a bit reductive.
|
| Trump came to power on the back of a populist anger at the
| wealthy elite and the consequences of neo-liberal economics
| (which is pretty fucking far from e.g. Marx. Regardless of
| the entirety of his meaning, certainly some of Alex Jones'
| hatred of "globalists" springs from the fact that they
| outsource jobs to where the labor is cheaper). Insofar as
| "wokeness" factors into Trump's power, it was to harness that
| anger and direct it at some wealthy elites, but not others.
| That is, he claimed that _these_ wealthy elites are being
| performatively sanctimonious and are trying to rob you of
| your freedom, money, power, etc, but _those_ wealthy elites
| have your best interests at heart. Even though the two
| wealthy elites are kissing cousins (to whit, Gavin Newsom and
| Donald Trump Jr. both engaged in a committed long-term
| relationships with the same woman, albeit at different times)
| and don 't actually care either way.
|
| "Woke" in the traditional sense is realizing that no matter
| what they say, both groups are wealthy elites, and that
| neither _actually_ has the interests of anyone but the elites
| at heart.
|
| There are definitely moments of "are we really prioritizing
| this right now?" with modern social justice movements. But
| even on the subject of trans kids, the question for me is not
| "are we encouraging the wrong ideas around gender?" but
| rather "are we doing everything that's necessary to keep kids
| from committing suicide?"
|
| The other day there was a post about fascists vs. rakes, and
| I really do feel like the the discussion around wokeness
| comes down to a similar misunderstanding about the intentions
| and moral principles of the two sides of the discussion.
| mordae wrote:
| He's just kissing the ring.
| hintymad wrote:
| That's just not true. He did not like wokeism, but on the
| other hand he's aligned with the democrats, including voting
| for Kamala. Like his politics or not, he is independent
| thinker.
| haswell wrote:
| As a liberal/left/progressive person who agrees with many of
| the ideas "woke" people are pushing, I find "wokeism"
| extremely problematic.
|
| We need to put to bed the notion that criticizing some aspect
| of a social phenomenon somehow means someone is wholly
| endorsing the worst elements of the opposition.
|
| Personally, I believe "wokeism" (I hesitate to even use this
| word because it's poorly defined) is actually one of the
| largest impediments to moving society towards the ideas
| generally associated with the word. It's a tactics issue.
|
| The difference between "We want the world to look more like
| X" and "Let's do these specific things to make the world look
| more like X" is critical. How you go about the latter can
| have a huge impact on the former.
| cageface wrote:
| My respect for PG and the rest of the leadership of the tech
| world unfortunately seem to be headed off the same cliff.
|
| The arrogance and lack of empathy is so disappointing and so
| unnecessary. Please try harder. A lot is at stake here.
| regularization wrote:
| The scientific method is to look at data and form models of
| reality from that. Not to have a model in mind and then look
| for evidence to support it or evidence to ignore.
|
| Graham has a Hegelian, Panglossian view of things. In "woke"
| terms he is a very, very wealthy white cishet male born to an
| upper middle class physicist. As the relations of production
| and social order were created for and are controlled by his
| class he defends it.
|
| To use an example - due to government mandates, the number of
| blacks attending Harvard Law School this year is less than half
| what it was last year. It does not fit into the narrative of a
| progressive, forward moving country which is meritocratic
| (although absurdly the legacies etc. taking their place is
| called a move to meritocracy). You can't say there is a
| national oppression of Africans in the US by the US, or that
| things are not meritocracy, so thinking starts getting very
| skewed. You can read this skewed thinking in Graham and others.
|
| YC was started by a convicted felon, and it's due to his
| privileged birth that Graham was not convicted along with his
| co-founder. Meanwhile black men are killed by police for
| selling loose cigarettes or handing a clerk a counterfeit bill
| (something I unknowingly did once) to cheers from corporate
| media commentators and demagogues. What kind of country you
| live in even here in the imperial center is very much a
| question of what class you are in, as well as other things.
|
| The working people and wretched of the earth are tired of being
| lectured to by the scions of diamond mines, Phillips Exeter
| graduates and the like. Even if they do know the worst case big
| O time for quicksort. History goes through twists and turns,
| and I welcome the challenges to their power we will be seeing
| this century.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Your comment, while eloquent, is totally unsubstantiated. At
| least PG _tries_ to justify his perspective.
|
| You didn't.
| diggan wrote:
| I do agree with you that it seems like that and I generally
| agree with you, but I'm also not a fan of your comment that
| only addresses the mind of PG, while the words he written are
| right there.
|
| Point out the parts of the blog post that shows his lack of
| rational thinking and research, rather than just giving some
| overall personal attack, as currently the comment is relatively
| off-topic considering the submission.
|
| I'm sure there are good and bad parts of the blog post, while
| you failed to address any sides of it.
| codexb wrote:
| Did we read the same article? It seems like a pretty coherent
| and plausible explanation for the current state of political
| correctness.
| bpt3 wrote:
| You read a reply from a person that doesn't like the
| implications of PG's statements and conclusions. Which I
| think is further evidence of PG's claims.
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| Could you expand on why this article makes you believe his mind
| has "become filled with mush."
|
| What points is he making (if you consider him to be making
| clear points), how do you think those points are flawed, etc..
| belter wrote:
| It just amazing to see how the new Trump administration
| prepares to take over, all the Tech Bros suddenly are coming
| out of their shell.
|
| Musk on DEI. Zuckerberg just got back to his Misogynistic
| persona of the first days of Facebook. Peter Thiel published an
| editorial in the FT last week talking about conspiracy theories
| on JFK, and now...The attack on Wokeness... Cherry-picking
| historical examples, misrepresenting real power dynamics, and
| dismissing genuine social concerns as mere "performative"
| gestures. All while coming from a privileged VC perspective
| that notoriously funnels opportunities to the same elite
| circles...
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I don't disagree, but Thiel has been "out of his shell" for
| decades.
| mempko wrote:
| What I find funny is that PG thinks he is a thinker who breaks
| the rules. No PG, you and your friends write the rules.
| Wokeness is about acknowledging the game is rigged against
| black people and others. But go ahead PG, redefine it as
| political correctness, then write an essay about how the
| current system is actually good.
|
| The reason wokeness scares the elite like PG is because it
| targets the system they themselves helped create.
| dpe82 wrote:
| In a way, this kind of ad hominem attack supports his point.
| dang wrote:
| Ok, but please don't break the site guidelines when posting to
| HN. Name-calling and personal attacks aren't allowed here, and
| your comment consists of nothing but.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| femiagbabiaka wrote:
| It's interesting that none of these anti-woke oracles can tell
| that they're at the center of an even greater cancel culture mob
| than the one they purported to be against. Wasn't PG just getting
| canceled a few months ago by the right for speaking up about
| Palestine? Give it a few years, this manifesto will look
| hilarious.
| notahacker wrote:
| Of course they can tell they're at the centre of an even
| greater cancel culture mob, the writing of these articles is
| entirely with fear of avoiding cancellation in mind...
| wrs wrote:
| Certainly this essay is, mostly, "not wrong". But I was hoping PG
| might use his powerful brain and hundreds of words to explain how
| one should combat structural racism and sexism without the
| unfortunate side effect of "wokeness". As far as I can see, he
| just recommended you do it "quietly". Disappointing.
| haswell wrote:
| For sake of argument, what if the answer truly is "do it
| quietly"?
|
| What if it's most effective to live your life to the best of
| your ability without prejudice, and instead of preaching about
| what people should do, you just do what it is that you believe
| to be right?
|
| I grew up in (and left behind) conservative evangelical
| christian circles, and the thing that always made me most
| uncomfortable with "wokeness" is how much it often resembles
| those holier-than-though people I grew up around.
|
| It's not that I disagree with the underlying ideas behind
| "woke" positions as much as it is the behavior of the people
| who want to move those ideas forward.
|
| Whether it's overly pious evangelical christians or "very woke"
| people, I think there's an underlying belief that transcends
| particular points of view that there's a particular way people
| must conduct themselves and that using various tactics ranging
| from moralizing to public shaming are tactics that are
| effective.
|
| Except I don't think these tactics are effective at all, and
| while it may be unsatisfying, "try to be the best example you
| can be" seems far more helpful than what often emerges when
| people feel they're morally justified.
| wrs wrote:
| There _is_ a particular way people should conduct themselves.
| For example, they shouldn't murder other people, damage
| public property, or systematically discriminate against other
| people based on gender or "race". We aren't "quiet" about the
| first two.
| haswell wrote:
| The trouble is that many of the issues now under the "woke"
| umbrella are not nearly as simple/obvious as the examples
| you've chosen.
|
| To raise just one example: for most people, terms like
| "whitelist" and "blacklist" held no racist connotations.
| When they uttered those words, they felt no animus towards
| another person or race. If they were asked to speculate why
| those words exist or how they originated, there's a good
| chance they'd point out that "light" and "dark" have
| longstanding associations often evoking religious imagery
| of good vs evil. And indeed, if you investigate the history
| of these words, they don't seem to have a problematic
| racial history (which can't be said for all words).
|
| But due to the _potential_ for racial connotations,
| replacing these words was part of a widespread campaign.
| _Resisting_ the removal of these words would result in
| someone being labeled a racist /bigot etc.
|
| Personally, I've chosen to remove those words from my
| vocabulary because they offend some people in neutral
| settings and it's not a big deal to say
| "allowlist/denylist". But I'm not taking it upon myself to
| scold other people for not doing the same thing. On the
| other hand, if someone started using the n word, I wouldn't
| be quiet about it.
|
| My general point was that acting as if all "woke" issues
| rise to the level of murder, property rights or racial
| discrimination is exactly the problem. People stop taking
| the "you must live this particular way" people seriously
| when the issues up for discussion are complex and not
| obvious.
| languagehacker wrote:
| Wow, I really hated this article. Thanks for the bad opinion,
| Paul.
| marstall wrote:
| it's not about the "meaning" of the word but more the way people
| use it and its connotations.
|
| it is often code for a racist or homophobic sentiment the speaker
| doesn't want to own up to.
|
| when people say "things are getting too woke" - let's be honest,
| they are often saying that people who were once unfairly
| marginalized (black people, gay people, women) are getting less
| marginalized.
| not2b wrote:
| He is attacking a straw man, by defining "woke" in a far narrower
| sense than it is actually used. Any objection to any form of
| prejudice, or any indication that the speaker is aware that
| members of some groups are better off than others, will be
| labelled "woke" by many commenters. It's to the point where some
| bigots say "woke" in the exact same places that their
| grandparents would say "n***-lover".
|
| But instead Graham focuses on people who are overly concerned
| with specific language because those people are easier to
| criticize.
| badgersnake wrote:
| It's hard to define "woke" as anything other than "something
| someone politically to the left of me does that I don't like"
| as that's how broadly it's used.
|
| It's utterly meaningless.
| yapyap wrote:
| I think the word "woke" means very different things to some
| people.
|
| As an example I think people from the American political left to
| somewhere(?) in the middle see it as what it has been introduced
| as, that being looking past the status quo and instead looking at
| your own values, i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having
| a disdain for them but empathy for them instead.
|
| and then on the other side it feels like the people on the
| American political right see it as what this website describes it
| as " A self-righteously moralistic person who behaves as if
| superior to others."
|
| I think the divide has originated from taking unlikeable
| behaviour and labeling that as 'woke' (in bad faith of course)
| and some people have just bonded to that definition so much that
| they see it as that.
|
| At least that's what I've noticed online over the past few
| (bonkers) years
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| "Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the midcentury
| civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning "awake [to
| what's happening to you and your community]," as opposed to
| being ignorant and asleep. Not really a statement about your
| own behavior so much as an acknowledgement of what _other
| people_ are doing to you--it just meant you 're well-informed.
|
| Perhaps not a coincidence that reactionaries have now co-opted
| black slang to mean "things minorities do that I don't like."
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Generally the reaction is not to minorities(non-white, is
| what I am assuming you mean) but to people from outside of a
| group trying to tell a group what words to use i.e. LatinX.
|
| An aside: If someone who is white is talking to the Spanish
| speaking community, would they be considered a minority? If
| so, then the parent premise would hold true.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| I mean any kind of minority, although I would generally say
| "marginalized group" instead of "minority." But this is HN,
| so trying to stick to more commonly-known terminology :P
|
| I also think the "latinx" thing is overblown and generally
| used as an "anti-woke" shibboleth by people who want to get
| mad at something. Literally never seen an Anglophone
| yelling at a Spanish speaker about it before, only queer
| Spanish speakers who use it to refer to themselves.
|
| Also worth noting that there have been other variations
| that predate "latinx" and have seen more widespread usage.
| There's "latine," and "latin@", although the former is both
| easier to write and to pronounce.
| svieira wrote:
| > Literally never seen an Anglophone yelling at a Spanish
| speaker about it before, only queer Spanish speakers who
| use it to refer to themselves.
|
| You and I move in different circles. I was definitely
| running into "normal" Spanish speakers for the past few
| years who's _awakening_ experience with "wokeness" was
| seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form and being told
| that the reason was "for Hispanic comfort" ... which
| _every single one of them_ found gaslighting in the
| extreme (since none of them liked it, even a little bit).
| dalmo3 wrote:
| > seeing the word "Latinx" on some HR form
|
| Yes, very common in job application forms. I don't find
| it offensive per se, but it makes me wonder if this is
| the kind of company where bullshit reigns in the
| workplace.
| spondylosaurus wrote:
| Ah, HR... and here I thought we were talking about real
| people! ;)
|
| I've been condescended by (generally well-meaning)
| corporate diversity initiatives on many occasions, but I
| think it's hard to take that as a statement about
| progressive movements in general. Corporate shit tends to
| be toothless and cringey across the board.
| svieira wrote:
| > I think it's hard to take that as a statement about
| progressive movements in general
|
| True, but remember that _many_ people 's experience of
| _any_ movement will be through an interface that is both
| lossy and hostile (whether it be government, corporate,
| clan leadership, what have you). "The effects that this
| had were well beyond the scope of what we intended" is so
| old it's in the Old Testament (but there as an answer-in-
| advance):
|
| > These will be the ways of the king who will reign over
| you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his
| chariots and to be his horsemen, and to run before his
| chariots; and he will appoint for himself commanders of
| thousands and commanders of fifties, and some to plow his
| ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his
| implements of war and the equipment of his chariots. He
| will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and
| bakers. He will take the best of your fields and
| vineyards and olive orchards and give them to his
| courtiers. He will take one-tenth of your grain and of
| your vineyards and give it to his officers and his
| courtiers. He will take your male and female slaves, and
| the best of your cattle and donkeys, and put them to his
| work. He will take one-tenth of your flocks, and you
| shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out
| because of your king, whom you have chosen for
| yourselves; but the Lord will not answer you in that day.
|
| ~ 1 Samuel Chapter 8 via https://www.biblegateway.com/pas
| sage/?search=1%20Samuel%208%...
| jejones3141 wrote:
| Yes. I suspect that the term "Latinx" was invented by
| some gringx.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > Yes. I suspect that the term "Latinx" was invented by
| some gringx.
|
| [0] suggests otherwise.
|
| [0] https://diversity.sonoma.edu/sites/diversity/files/hi
| story_o...
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Latinx is a great example of the overreaction. Some people
| use this term. It was briefly catching on among groups with
| power, but ultimately never did. But it is spoken about
| like Harris was saying "latinx" in all of her campaign
| videos and that people are being fired for using "latino"
| or "latina" or even "latin."
|
| Ultimately, I think it is important that groups are able to
| try things and then later determine that they weren't the
| best idea. Shouldn't this be ceelbrated?
| jl6 wrote:
| It would indeed be nice if these things were introduced
| as "let's try a new thing and then choose to accept or
| reject it later, based on results", rather than "we have
| determined there is only one correct way of thinking
| about this topic, and if you don't like it, you're a
| Nazi".
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I suppose I would ask where you've seen or heard this
| sort of ultimatum about Latinx.
| dolni wrote:
| Isn't it interesting that your response here is
| questioning and perhaps dismissive?
|
| If a minority were sharing their perspective about
| whatever their lived experience was with regards to
| racism, would you respond this way?
|
| I'll answer that: no, you wouldn't.
|
| Which very quickly lifts the curtain. The movement is not
| about empathy or understanding. It's about empathy and
| understanding for people _you_ deem worthy of receiving
| it.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I really don't understand how this relates.
| jl6 wrote:
| Sure, for example, this guy and his paper:
| https://x.com/mfrmarcel/status/1850899388165693916
|
| "Latinx" is presented uncritically as "inclusive", and
| the people who don't like it are smeared as
| "queerphobic".
|
| This is academia at its most tone-deaf and ignorant. If
| he actually spoke to some Latino people he would quickly
| discover that the reasons for the backlash have
| approximately zero to do with "queerphobia":
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latinx
| imphatic wrote:
| Can you please bridge how your comment "and if you don't
| like it, you're a Nazi" is in any way connected to this
| tweet about a researcher saying the usage of the phrase
| "latinx" reduced latino support for Democrats?
|
| Another person is asking basically "why are people so
| quick to dismiss claims of aggressive wokeness policing"
| and this is why. Because it is always so much
| exaggeration about the topic coming from these claims.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > "Woke" was originally an AAVE term, popular in the
| midcentury civil rights era and beyond. Literally meaning
| "awake [to what's happening to you and your community]," as
| opposed to being ignorant and asleep.
|
| This is distorted history. "Woke" is just the word in a bunch
| of black dialects for "awake." We just say "are you woke?"
| instead of "are you awake?"
|
| What happened is at some point some white woman somewhere had
| a black person explaining their political beliefs to her. It
| was likely a black person who was working for her (doing her
| nails, washing her clothes, or serving her food) who she had
| a faux friendship with and considered a spiritual guru and a
| connection to the real world and real suffering, in that way
| white people do (magical negro.) She carried these pearls of
| wisdom to her white friends, or to her students at the
| university, or to the nonprofit that she worked at, and it
| entered into the white lexicon as a magic word.
|
| If a white hippie, in the middle of a righteous rant, said
| "you've got to stay awake, man..." as many have, it wouldn't
| have been so exotic and interesting to tell their white
| friends. Or as useful to get yourself a job as a consultant.
|
| At that point, it became a thing that white people would use
| to abuse other white people as racists. The sin wasn't
| calling white people racists, it's that a certain self-
| selected white elect declared themselves to be _not racist_ ,
| or even _anti-racist_ , in order to attack other white
| people. And they decided this gave them the right to control
| how other white people speak. And a government who hates the
| way people can talk to each other on the internet about what
| the government is lying about supported them whole-heartedly.
| Woke policing was an excellent way to use legal means to keep
| people _asleep._
|
| And black people got blamed, as always. Because America is
| racist. Black people didn't benefit an iota from any of this.
| Approximately 0.0% of DEI managers are black men. Black
| people got poorer during the entire period. Now the anti-woke
| are going to unleash their revenge on black people, and the
| ex-woke are going to resent black people for not recognizing
| their sainthood.
|
| > Perhaps not a coincidence that reactionaries have now co-
| opted black slang to mean "things minorities do that I don't
| like."
|
| Meanwhile, the first step of wokeness was to erase black
| people altogether and replace them with "minorities" and
| "people of color," as if the only thing important to note
| about black people is their lack of whiteness. Or, since
| sexual minorities are included in "minorities", black people
| now have no problems that can be distinguished from the
| desires of white upper-middle class transwomen. Wokeness
| erased slavery and Jim Crow, and all that money that white
| people inherit, just as much as anti-wokeness did. Now the
| real crime was _that white people weren 't feeling the right
| things, and weren't saying the right things._ Complete
| Caucasian auto-fixation.
|
| The only thing _racial_ about black people 's problems is
| that white people used race as the criterion to enslave.
| Slavery and Jim Crow were the point, and all of the freebies
| handed from government to people's white ancestors that
| weren't given to slaves and ex-slaves, and all of the labor
| and torture visited on slaves and ex-slaves turned into
| profit that went into the pockets of white people and was
| taxed into government coffers. There were blond-haired blue-
| eyed slaves; the "race" stuff is a white invention, not
| something they get to act like is an imposition from their
| ex-property. And that experience is not something that
| everybody non-white or non-straight gets to steal.
| archagon wrote:
| When you're _woke_ , it's bad.
|
| But when you're _red-pilled_ , it's apparently good.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the divide has originated from taking unlikeable behaviour
| and labeling that as 'woke' (in bad faith of course) and some
| people have just bonded to that definition so much that they
| see it as that_
|
| CPG Grey's co-dependent memes video comes to mind [1].
|
| Each group defines wokeness (and defines how _other_ groups
| define it) to maximise outrage. To the extent there is a mind
| virus it's in using the term at all. (Which is where I
| appreciate Graham bringing the term prig into the discussion.)
|
| [1] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rE3j_RHkqJc
| grahamj wrote:
| > i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain
| for them but empathy for them instead.
|
| > people on the American political right see it as what this
| website describes it as " A self-righteously moralistic person
| who behaves as if superior to others."
|
| I think those are just two perspectives on the same situation.
| "wokeness" is realizing we should be treating people better and
| "anti-wokness" is people feeling called out by that.
|
| People tend not to like it being pointed out that they are
| assholes, especially when they know it's true. That's pretty
| much the whole "anti-woke" thing in a nut.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| completely agree. The Right uses "woke" as sort of an anti-
| virtue-signal.
| bpt3 wrote:
| You missed the point of the article completely. Wokeness (as
| PG defined it, which I would agree is the most commonly used
| definition today) isn't merely realizing we should be
| treating people better, it's realizing that people should be
| treated better and focusing on being a "prig" about
| completely inconsequential and tangentially relevant concerns
| as a result of that rather than taking meaningful action.
| cmdli wrote:
| "Woke", for the most part, is a boogeyman that the conservative
| right uses as a summary label for various political movements
| on the left. Basically nobody on the left talks about "woke"
| except for perhaps a period of six months back in 2017.
|
| Many political groups do this: they identify some aspect of the
| opposition, preferably one that is easy to ridicule, and then
| repeat those accusations ad-nauseum. The complaints about, say,
| LatinX have far surpassed the number of actual proponents of
| it, which were a small number of people of the left. However,
| it still brought up again and again because it forms a useful
| image of what people are fighting against.
|
| The trouble with this is that a groups idea of the "enemy"
| typically outlasts and often surpasses the actual enemy that
| idea is based off of. People on the right will write endless
| articles and videos about wokeness not because there actually
| exists a problem with wokeness but to try to gain political and
| social status with their political group.
| dnissley wrote:
| If you tried to steelman woke, what would fall under it?
| rectang wrote:
| Conscious of the effects of structural racism.
| jpadkins wrote:
| if the movement stopped at the level of consciousness,
| then there wouldn't have been as much backlash. It went
| way beyond consciousness. You are admonished if you
| aren't actively anti-racist.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I guess a person could be pro-racist, neutral on racism,
| or anti-racist. Is there another category I'm missing?
| nec4b wrote:
| Simply not racist. Anti-racist means racist in reverse.
| calinet6 wrote:
| It does not mean that at all.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| You can't be neutral against racists if you believe your
| lack of action is tacit approval.
| cmdli wrote:
| Generally speaking, most people on the left talk about a
| certain number of ideas. For example, many on the left
| believe strongly in trans rights. They believe that trans
| rights are either being actively limited or are actively
| under threat by people they believe are trying to either
| get rid of them or force them back into the shadows.
|
| So, when a prominent figure such as JK Rowling starts both
| talking about "protecting women" and the "trans mafia",
| they become concerned about what influence she might have
| on the debate on the rights of trans people. They criticize
| what they believe to be false or harmful beliefs about
| trans people and believe that her words are actively doing
| harm by promoting those false beliefs.
|
| People on the left generally do not believe strongly that
| "more discussion leads to correct beliefs". They point to
| the many moral panics, bigoted movements, and real harm
| done to certain groups in history and do not believe that
| what some call "open discussion" has historically always
| led to the least harm.
|
| People on the left generally do not believe that all
| discussion needs to be censored or tightly controlled.
| Rather, they view certain beliefs and viewpoints as
| actively harmful because they spread harmful beliefs about
| particular demographics. They believe that political
| discussion can, and does, go beyond what is useful or
| helpful sometimes.
| zimpenfish wrote:
| > "more discussion leads to correct beliefs"
|
| Generally the people saying that really mean "more
| (listening to what I say) leads to (what I believe)
| beliefs".
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| It just means being awake with regards to your position in
| society and privileges. Recognizing your unearned
| advantages (and disadvantages) and managing to swallow your
| ego and acknowledge the ways you've benefited from
| society's stratifications.
|
| The problem, of course, is that "Awareness and
| acknowledgement of the true nature of society" can be
| interpreted to mean a thousand different things, some of
| which are more accurate and actionable than others.
| djur wrote:
| Right. The original meaning was just "politically aware",
| the same basic metaphor as the "Wide-Awakes" in the Civil
| War era. If you go back far enough you found it sometimes
| used in the "wake up sheeple" sense (i.e. referring to a
| conspiracy mindset). But it's basically never been the
| self-appellation of a political or cultural movement;
| essentially everyone who uses it that way is deriving it
| from critical right-wing discourse.
| atmavatar wrote:
| > Recognizing your unearned advantages (and
| disadvantages) and managing to swallow your ego and
| acknowledge the ways you've benefited from society's
| stratifications.
|
| This has always struck me as a fatal messaging problem.
| When you couch the problem as being one of unearned
| advantages, the obvious implication is that you believe
| the solution is to take away something from the
| "privileged" group, which immediately puts many people on
| the defensive, _especially_ if they feel like they 're
| already having a tough time of things.
|
| The real problem isn't that [men / white people] may
| indirectly get propped-up when others are artificially
| held down -- it's that people are being held down. The
| current (and disastrous) progressive messaging often
| sounds like "we want to hold you down, too".
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > When you couch the problem as being one of unearned
| advantages, the obvious implication is that you believe
| the solution is to take away something from the
| "privileged" group...
|
| That's one possible interpretation, yes. Not everything
| works that way, though. Gay people getting married didn't
| take anything away from me. As the meme goes, "it's not
| pie".
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'm totally fine with recognizing that other groups of
| people might struggle more than me, and maybe we should
| try to help them. I.e. setting up a free tutoring program
| in inner city schools is a good example.
|
| I'm not fine with my hard work being dismissed because of
| my sex, ethnicity, or whatever other 'privileges' I had.
| When I see someone online speak about privileges, it's
| often being used as a cudgel to silence someone. It wears
| away at my empathy.
| naming_the_user wrote:
| There are a lot of things mixed up in here though that
| you are summarising in one sentence.
|
| My interpretation is something like:
|
| Step 1 - recognising an advantage e.g. "I am
| straight/white/Asian/whatever".
|
| Step 2 - recognising that it's unearned "I didn't choose
| it, I was just born that way".
|
| Step 3 - is to hold the belief that because it's unearned
| that no advantage should be assigned to it, we cannot
| claim that it's preferable, etc.
|
| To me, what it means to be woke, is basically to take a
| thought process that is logically unworkable, purely
| because it can be claimed as a kind of morally superior
| way of being. It requires the belief in step 3. Steps 1
| and 2 are I think fairly universally accepted by almost
| everyone.
| alienthrowaway wrote:
| An ideology that highlights the existence of, questions,
| and probably seeks to undermine a number of current social
| hierarchies, and power structures.
|
| Whether this is seen as a good or bad thing depends in
| where one falls on the left/right spectrum.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Whether this is seen as a good or bad thing depends in
| where one falls on the left/right spectrum.
|
| And/or where one falls in the social hierarchy and power
| structures.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| We had a huge amount of trouble in my town (went to federal
| court!) when a mentally ill and alcoholic scion of an "old
| family" (what you might call a "hillbilly") was harassing
| these folks
|
| https://www.ithaca.com/news/tompkins_county/bipoc-
| community-...
|
| (we're all hoping the four weeks in jail he spent taught
| him a lesson)
|
| These people are quite provocative. They have a list of
| people they want to center including "fat" (most Americans,
| I have 31.2 BMI which qualifies as 'obese' but I don't look
| it), trans, and "femme" (but not "women") and having
| chronic illness (does high blood pressure count? high
| cholesterol? got a high A1C once or a caught a handful of
| bad heartbeats on an EEG once? enlarged prostate?) or
| mental illness (the neighbor?) or disability (autism?
| schizotypy?)
|
| I know they want to exclude me as a white man but I
| fantasize about having the discussion trying to get in
| where I go through all my attributes in order of least
| embarrassing to most embarrassing until they give up.
|
| Large lily white crowds have appeared at the numerous court
| hearings, but people of color are nowhere in sight except
| for the plaintiff. People with the same last name in town
| have received harassing phone calls, I know some of them
| and they aren't the kind of people who would condone that
| behavior at all, some of them have told me that he's always
| been eccentric and hard to live with and some of them have
| tried to talk him out of his misbehavior to know avail.
|
| The steelman is the Cornell Botanic Gardens that used to be
| called the "Cornell Plantations". They run special exhibits
| like this
|
| https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/08/seeds-survival-
| bota...
|
| which cover very interesting topics such as the experiences
| that black, indigenous and other people have with plants.
| verall wrote:
| I'm having some trouble understanding, does "These
| people" refer to the David family referenced in the
| article, the Jane Minor community garden referenced,
| Rootwork Herbals mentioned, or some other group of
| people?
|
| > some of them have told me that he's always been
| eccentric and hard to live with and some of them have
| tried to talk him out of his misbehavior to know avail
|
| It sounds like the alleged crimes in the article are
| pretty rough to put up with, if it was your neighbor:
|
| > David alleges Whittaker has vandalized her son's car,
| spray painted her fence, threateningly shot a BB gun in
| the air during a teen gardening session, removed sections
| of her fence and threatened to hit her son with a stick,
| among other offenses.
|
| I wouldn't call that kind of behavior "eccentric", maybe
| antisocial. And if that behavior was directed mainly
| towards their black neighbor, I would call it racist.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| David's behavior is criminal, racist and all that. I
| think he's a total ass, but I know he's an alcoholic and
| all indications I have is that he's mentally ill. I also
| know members of his extended family and, yes, many of
| them voted for Trump, but none of them would do the kind
| of crap he did.
|
| I'll point to "rootwork herbals" as being provocative in
| that so much duckspeak rolls out of their lips. (e.g. wtf
| is "femme"? does being fat erase my sin of being a white
| man? how fat do I have to be?) If they didn't have David
| as a neighbor they'd attract somebody else that's the
| same; they are planning on moving but their problems will
| follow them whereever they go.)
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Sometimes things are much simpler than people on any side
| of the political spectrum would have you believe.
|
| "I support black people having a right to exist and be
| treated fairly by white people."
|
| That's what woke means. You can, surely, derive the meaning
| of anti-woke from it.
| bpt3 wrote:
| If that were a remotely accurate definition of how it is
| commonly used, you'd have a point. Instead we can see
| you're part of the problem.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Could you describe how you see it commonly used? I'm
| unsure what you mean here.
| bpt3 wrote:
| See the article we're discussing.
| calinet6 wrote:
| It's an extremely accurate definition of what we
| genuinely believe. There is no ulterior motive. There is
| no hidden agenda. It's very simple, and we're all
| confused why it even needs to be a 'thing.'
| bpt3 wrote:
| The "we" you mention must be an extremely small portion
| of society then.
|
| What percentage of Americans so l do you believe disagree
| with that definition of woke?
| ctoth wrote:
| Another interesting perspective on this idea:
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20211108155321/https://freddiede.
| ..
| slothtrop wrote:
| He also has one titled "of course you know what woke means"
| that really drives the point.
| csa wrote:
| > "Woke", for the most part, is a boogeyman that the
| conservative right uses as a summary label for various
| political movements on the left. Basically nobody on the left
| talks about "woke" except for perhaps a period of six months
| back in 2017.
|
| As someone who most folks would indentify as "liberal", I use
| this term to describe a very small but vocal group of so-
| called progressives who are a problem for the liberal cause
| writ large.
|
| > The complaints about, say, LatinX have far surpassed the
| number of actual proponents of it, which were a small number
| of people of the left.
|
| This is a prime example. I can't tell you how many times I've
| been indignantly corrected by so-called progressives when
| speaking about "Latine" -- note that this term is what
| many/most Spanish speakers (at least ones who aren't eyeballs
| deep in "woke" circles) are more likely to use when they
| don't want to use "Latino".
|
| Latinx is one of those white liberal made-up things (of
| many), and the language police enforcement is off-putting and
| shows an incredible lack boundaries.
|
| "Woke" ideals resonate well with a narrow group of
| "progressives"/liberals, but the "woke" agenda, messaging,
| and implementation are alienating to large swathes of the US
| public, including but definitely not limited to conservative
| extremists.
|
| If you want to see some realpolitik on this issue, note how
| AOC learned (via Pelosi) to get in line with votes and
| messaging when it mattered even while endorsing
| progressive/liberal/woke ideologies.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| And what did AOC get in return?
| csa wrote:
| > And what did AOC get in return?
|
| We probably won't know for a long time.
| taurath wrote:
| > the "woke" agenda, messaging, and implementation are
| alienating to large swathes of the US public
|
| I'd like to call into question your use of the "I'm a
| liberal" card here - what is the "woke" agenda, what is the
| "woke" implementation? The wording is straight out of [any
| conservative pundit]'s script, with not even a single shred
| of demonstrated understanding of either the underlying
| values, nor the problems stated.
| haswell wrote:
| > _Basically nobody on the left talks about "woke" except for
| perhaps a period of six months back in 2017._
|
| Can't really agree. Especially in the wake of the 2024
| election, there's been quite a bit of discussion about
| wokeness on the left.
|
| The trouble is that many people have decided that if you
| discuss "wokeness" and especially if you have a problem with
| some element of it, that means you're no longer on "the
| left".
|
| Personally, I think the issue is mostly about _behavior_ ,
| and not specific ideas. "Let's all make an effort to move
| culture in a better direction" became "If you don't wholly
| endorse these specific changes we've decided are necessary,
| that makes you a bigot, you're not a true progressive, etc.".
|
| When a lot of this was heating up during the pandemic, I
| encountered two very different kinds of people.
|
| 1. Those who generally agreed with efforts to improve the
| status quo and did what they could to help (started
| displaying their pronouns, tried to eliminate language that
| had deeply racist connotations, etc)
|
| 2. Those who would actively judge/shame/label you if you
| weren't 100% up to speed on every hot-button issue and hadn't
| fully implemented the desired changes
|
| It's that 2nd group that tends to be the target of "anti-
| woke" sentiment, and that 2nd group tended to be extremely
| noisy.
|
| > not because there actually exists a problem with wokeness
| but to try to gain political and social status with their
| political group
|
| The other issue that I see repeatedly is a group of people
| insisting that "wokeness" doesn't exist or that there isn't a
| toxic form of it currently in the culture. I think
| acknowledging the existence of bad faith actors and "morality
| police" would do more for advancing the underlying ideas
| often labeled "woke" than trying to focus on the fakeness of
| the problem.
|
| Maybe that group is made up of squeaky wheels, but their
| existence is used to justify the "anti-woke" sentiment that
| many people push.
|
| For me, this boils down to a tactics issue where people are
| behaving badly and distracting from real issues - often
| issues those same people claim to care about.
| _bee_hive_ wrote:
| Well said, thank you for this.
| kristopolous wrote:
| It's the grievance politics strategy to siphon young people
| to right wing politics through resentment and that is all
| it is.
|
| It was "political correctness" in the 90s and now it's CRT,
| DEI, cancel culture, SJW, antifa, it's all the same
| strategy.
|
| It's the predicted consequences of thatcherite and
| reaganomic policies which were also practiced by
| clinton/obama/biden. The people who are still true
| believers of this disasterous Jack Welching of the american
| economy is blaming imagined 19 year old college kids,
| dishwashers and janitors for consequences of their
| intentional politics.
|
| This is similar to how the nationalists blamed everything
| but nationalism for the consequences of WW1 and then
| thought hyper-nationalism was the solution.
|
| Our economic state is the consequence of our economic
| policy.
| gortok wrote:
| The humorous part to me is when folks talk badly about
| 'antifa' they either forget or gloss over what the 'fa'
| means in antifa.
| kristopolous wrote:
| they've redefined it as "first amendment". Also they've
| convinced themselves that hypernationalistic fascism was
| somehow a project of the leftists the fascists rounded up
| and slaughtered.
|
| It's the same mechanism of imagining an enemy causing the
| negative consequences of the policies they advocate for.
|
| It's actually the core thing that connects tech startups,
| conspiracy theories, medical quackery, and fascism - a
| desire to be guided by the imaginary and construct
| necessary delusions to deny reality.
|
| Wildest thing is, every now and then, it works out - the
| most delusional Bitcoin people of 2010 are genuinely
| billionaires now.
|
| Most of the richest people had to deeply believe in what
| was, at some time, an irrational fantasy and that taking
| inadvisable acts of insanity would somehow work out.
| thephyber wrote:
| > It's that 2nd group that tends to be the target of "anti-
| woke" sentiment, and that 2nd group tended to be extremely
| noisy.
|
| The reactionaries to "woke" ideas know that (2) is a small
| number of vocal people and yet they still wrap the anchor
| around the necks of both (1) and (2). Same strategy for
| "communism", "socialism", "groomers", "Hamas apologists",
| etc. It's convenient to do this and say all Democrats (or
| all non-Republicans, or non-MAGA, etc) are painted with
| this broad brush.
|
| What your comment misses is that the "morality police" has
| always existed and currently exists along different poles
| than in the recent past. When I grew up, the social
| conservatives / incredibly religious were the ones trying
| to bully people into moral positions. Now, we still have
| those people (old groups like Family Research Council and
| new groups like Moms For Liberty) are doing the same thing,
| but aren't getting flak from the "anti-wokeness" crowd. Bad
| faith actors all around.
| notacoward wrote:
| Exactly. Anyone with any reading comprehension (and
| honesty) can tell that PG conflates _being_ woke with
| _acting_ woke early on for exactly this purpose. He also
| talks a lot about polarization as though it 's entirely
| the "woke mob's" fault, about moralizing without
| mentioning evangelicals, about "enforcers" without
| mentioning MAGA paramilitaries, etc. It's all _very_
| disingenuous, even for him.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Can't really agree. Especially in the wake of the 2024
| election, there's been quite a bit of discussion about
| wokeness on the left.
|
| We'd have to figure out what the hell people are referring
| to first before there's any discussion worth a damn. As
| best I can tell it just means "any behavior coming from
| young people I don't like as a cable news viewer". Frankly,
| I'm at the point where if someone uses the word non-
| ironically I just write the speaker off as not seriously
| trying to communicate. Use your words! Describe specific
| behavior. People are just working themselves into a tizzy
| trying to figure out something to be mad at while also
| contorting themselves into knots trying to avoid discussing
| anything material, concrete, substantial, or tied to
| reality.
| cle wrote:
| TFA spends the first 7-8 paragraphs defining "woke", even
| a dedicated callout to a concise definition:
| > An aggressively performative focus on social justice.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| That's a pretty subjective definition. We're back where
| we started.
| cle wrote:
| Helpfully he spends most of the article elaborating on
| what he means by "aggressively performative".
| tomlockwood wrote:
| So, not such a "concise definition".
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| what does "performative" mean in this context? I honestly
| can't tell. It would really help if pg provided an
| example so we could evaluate for ourselves.
|
| Meanwhile, basically all national politics is
| performative bullshit. Why are we not calling both
| parties woke?
| cle wrote:
| Well b/c of the "focus on social justice" clause. I'd
| definitely agree though that both parties are way too
| "aggressively performative".
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| Well, I wonder what he thinks non-performative social
| justice looks like. The civil rights movement was
| certainly performative (as is all protest) and that's
| basically the only narrative we were offered growing up
| for how to affect social change.
| cle wrote:
| > Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping
| members of marginalized groups, the politically correct
| focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong
| words to talk about them.
|
| I also think there's a pretty big difference between
| keyboard jockeying / speech policing, and putting
| yourself in physical danger by physically confronting
| racists who'd lynch you if there weren't cameras around.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| While we're on the subject: I'm having difficulty
| squaring this part of his essay with history as I
| understand it.
|
| > "The reason the student protests of the 1960s didn't
| lead to political correctness was precisely that -- they
| were student movements. They didn't have any real power."
|
| That's both literally incorrect (we shouldn't consider
| the Black Panthers or the ACLU "student movements") and
| seems ignorant of the real power those organizations had
| (their agitation led directly to the passage of the Civil
| Rights Act).
| ceejayoz wrote:
| The same tactics were used against them at the time, too.
|
| As an example, see this old anti-MLK comic; it certainly
| sounds quite familiar: https://www.reddit.com/r/interesti
| ngasfuck/comments/s6ll2c/a...
| guelo wrote:
| Calling it performative (aka "virtue signaling") is
| either mind reading or casting aspersion without
| evidence.
| cle wrote:
| I don't know what you want. Most of the article is spent
| elaborating on what that means and providing examples of
| it.
|
| > Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping
| members of marginalized groups, the politically correct
| focused on getting people in trouble for using the wrong
| words to talk about them.
|
| > The problem with political correctness was not that it
| focused on marginalized groups, but the shallow,
| aggressive way in which it did so.
| mseepgood wrote:
| "aggressively" and "performative" already contain a
| judgement. The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an
| "awareness of the existence of social injustice".
| cle wrote:
| The whole article is an opinion piece that is judging a
| group of people. I don't think most people would agree
| with your definition.
|
| And besides, the definition of "woke" is a secondary
| issue anyway, the article's purpose isn't to propose a
| definition of woke, it's to judge and criticize people
| who behave a certain way, and he's done an adequate job
| IMO of describing the behaviors he's criticizing.
| tivert wrote:
| > The actual meaning of "wokeness" is an "awareness of
| the existence of social injustice".
|
| The actual meaning of "wokeness" is that _it has several
| different meanings_. For instancee, the first could be
| what you outlined:
|
| 1. an "awareness of the existence of social injustice"
|
| And another, _equally valid one_ (that comes about from
| the reaction to people who embraced the first meaning and
| proceeded to behave obnoxiously and gain lots of
| attention) is:
|
| 2. the obnoxious and doctrinaire enforcement of the
| values of the "social justice" subculture on the wider
| population through bullying tactics (e.g. social media
| pile ons)
|
| etc.
|
| Taking one as the "one true meaning" is almost always
| just a tactic to delegitimize an opponent (usually by the
| left, as they have more access prestigious institutions,
| but language is language and no authority can suppress
| new words and new senses of existing words).
| haswell wrote:
| > _We 'd have to figure out what the hell people are
| referring to first_
|
| Incidentally, this has been a major part of the post-
| election discussion about it.
|
| I agree that the term has become diluted to a point that
| it's lost most meaning, and in many cases it means
| "behaviors and opinions I disagree with".
|
| I think it mostly means some combination of: morality
| police, people against "wrongspeak", holier-than-thou
| attitudes, white people advocating for topics they don't
| understand, and in general a kind of tribal behavior that
| "others" people who don't fully buy into the entire
| spectrum of ideas this group is selling, i.e. they treat
| their beliefs as absolutely true, and anyone who
| questions them or wants to debate them are automatically
| othered.
|
| > _People are just working themselves into a tizzy trying
| to figure out something to be mad at while also
| contorting themselves into knots trying to avoid
| discussing anything material, concrete, substantial, or
| tied to reality._
|
| I agree and disagree. The media landscape has had a major
| hand in shaping the discussion, and social media has
| validated the worst fears of the people working
| themselves into a tizzy. e.g. if someone supports trans
| rights but has concerns about minors receiving certain
| surgeries and wants to discuss those concerns, they're
| put in the same category as transphobes who wish real
| harm on other people. Depending on where they raise these
| topics, they'll automatically be blocked and/or put on
| lists of transphobic people.
|
| Discussions that actually focus on something material,
| concrete or substantial are derailed by collective
| community behaviors that refuse to engage with the
| concrete and substantial.
|
| It's a sad state of affairs for public discourse, and
| figuring out how to de-escalate the conversation and
| somehow return to substantive good-faith conversations
| might be the most important problem of the century.
| F7F7F7 wrote:
| Mostly means or what it's become to mean? I was on a
| college campus in 2002 and the word typically painted a
| picture. Someone who was hyperaware of real or perceived
| injustices and was likely to have incense burning in
| their rooms. The people who I thought were "woke" would
| have agreed with me. Down to the incense in a lot of
| cases.
|
| The right is notoriously great at hijacking words
| terms/words and flipping them into something nefarious.
| Or sometimes that exact opposite like they did turning
| the well supported by all Estate Tax into the
| conservative hating death tax.
|
| Now woke has morphed into this weird thing. A clapback
| insult for the insecure to justify their insistence at
| exclusion of one kind or another.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| > Those who generally agreed with efforts to improve the
| status quo and did what they could to help (started
| displaying their pronouns, tried to eliminate language that
| had deeply racist connotations, etc)
|
| You're making the assumption that most of that isn't
| performative nonsense that in reality doesn't help
| anything.
|
| Also known as slacktivism.
|
| It got to the point where I would see pronouns and flags
| and URLs to DEI policies (Click here to stop racism now!
| Really?) in people's email signatures that I would
| immediately assume they were insincere and phony.
|
| One person I knew had "LGBTQ Ally" in their professional
| signature. It's one step removed from writing I HAVE GAY
| FRIENDS and frankly I found it all really weird, fake, and
| reminiscent of 1940s Germany where people had to wear their
| pins to proclaim their allegiance. None of this has place
| in a professional setting.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Why a weird, distorted take. People who put "LGBTQ Ally"
| in their signatures aren't being phony. They have friends
| or family who are LGBTQ, and being visible is one way to
| support them. If it's unprofessional to be an ally to
| LGBTQ friends and family then it is easy for hateful
| folks to claim it's unprofessional to even _be_ LGBTQ.
| Why does it offend you so much for someone to say "I
| support my gay friends"?
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| It doesn't offend me.
|
| Picture going into a restaurant, and before the hostess
| seats you she says "I'd like to remind you that I love
| black people".
|
| That's out of place it is. It doesn't offend anyone, it's
| just an _odd_ thing to say. You may not perceive it so if
| you 're inside the bubble.
| nox101 wrote:
| Google Maps allows you declare your allegiance. You can
| mark a business as LGBTQ+ friendly (why should I have to
| declare that and it not just be assumed?).
|
| https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/small-
| business/addi...
|
| You can also declare a business as "woman owned/led"
|
| https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/small-
| business/empo...
|
| and "black owned"
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/31/21348990/google-black-
| own...
| taurath wrote:
| > The other issue that I see repeatedly is a group of
| people insisting that "wokeness" doesn't exist or that
| there isn't a toxic form of it currently in the culture.
|
| The function of the word "wokeness" in conservative and
| technology executive circles (quickly becoming the same
| circle) is to tie the ideas of progressives together with
| the least defensible part.
|
| That the squeaky wheels exist is used to justify wholesale
| dropping of the entire train of thought. PG is deciding
| that because PC culture exists, we can't work on those real
| issues until PC culture is gone. Why is wokeness noteworthy
| and of-our-time, but racism is not? Because PG doesn't
| think its actually a problem.
|
| I grew up in the 90s and the PC culture then was
| Christianity. You couldn't say a curse word, or even
| mention the idea of sex. PC culture in the 90s when he
| mentions it was more akin to "don't use a hard-r, even if
| they do it in Blazing Saddles".
| diggan wrote:
| > PG is deciding that because PC culture exists, we can't
| work on those real issues until PC culture is gone
|
| That doesn't seem to be supported by the essay itself,
| since it has the following part:
|
| > But by the same token we should not automatically
| reject everything the woke believe. I'm not a Christian,
| but I can see that many Christian principles are good
| ones. It would be a mistake to discard them all just
| because one didn't share the religion that espoused them.
| It would be the sort of thing a religious zealot would
| do.
|
| It seems to say there are real issues, there are good
| things coming from "the woke" (whatever that means), we
| shouldn't discard all ideas just because one or two are
| bad.
|
| > Because PG doesn't think its actually a problem.
|
| Is that something pg actually said/wrote/hinted at in any
| of the essays, or are you just trying to bad-faith your
| way out of this discussion?
| petsfed wrote:
| PG says
|
| >Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem
| on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a
| genuine one.
|
| What he does not explain is how big a problem of scale
| this is, but based on the way the rest of the essay goes,
| I'm going to guess that he thinks racism is not a problem
| that currently demands any policy changes whatsoever,
| except perhaps to roll back prior policy changes to
| address the real, measurable damage of historic racism.
| diggan wrote:
| > I'm going to guess that he thinks racism is not a
| problem that currently demands any policy changes
| whatsoever, except perhaps to roll back prior policy
| changes to address the real, measurable damage of
| historic racism.
|
| Is that really your charitable reading of the part you
| quoted?
|
| In my mind, a charitable reading would be that he means
| it is a genuine problem, and deserves to be fixed, but it
| isn't as big as "the woke" deems it to be. I wouldn't do
| any assumptions if he wants/doesn't want policy change,
| and jumping to thinking he advocates for rolling back
| prior policy certainly doesn't sound like charitable
| reading to me.
|
| It is a divisive topic already, we would all be better
| off trying to understand as well as we can before
| replying.
| ImPostingOnHN wrote:
| _> he means it is a genuine problem, and deserves to be
| fixed, but it isn 't as big as "the woke" deems it to be_
|
| Who is "the woke"? How big do they think big is? How does
| PG know what this nebulous group all agrees upon? How big
| of an issue does _he_ think it is, as far as actions to
| be taken?
|
| Without specifying what he means, it's a shallow,
| meaningless, dismissive statement on racism _at best_ (do
| we need more of those?) and rhetoric to baselessly paint
| ones opponent as more extreme than themselves at worst.
| xp84 wrote:
| Wow, you're already being downvoted for daring to call
| out the obvious strawmanning.
|
| I can't speak for PG but I don't think it's wrong to
| demand a very high bar for creating "policy changes" -
| especially if they're based on treating people
| differently based on what color they are. As it stands
| now, our society is actively using race as a classifier,
| which has had the effect of harming race relations, as
| those who belong to supposedly privileged groups (whites
| or males, for instance) but are also poor and
| uninfluential get increasingly ticked off at all the
| special treatment being doled out for "every group except
| you, basically." That often leads them to oppose
| progressive ideas like welfare programs, since to their
| perception the whole thing is being rigged against them
| based on their color or sex. Combine that with how flawed
| our overall system is for people who make just enough
| money to not qualify for government programs and you have
| a recipe for screwing all the poorest Americans,
| including all colors.
|
| So far nobody has explained to me how placing say, an
| upper-class Nigerian who came here for college, in a
| presumptively morally-superior position over a descendent
| of Irish immigrants that came over in 1920 and toiled in
| factories (and who had zero involvement with the historic
| wrongs done to African Americans). Obviously most of us
| have heritages that are much more mixed, but that's just
| the point: judging people based on skin color is stupid
| and only a very blunt, inaccurate instrument for making
| our society more fair.
| vannevar wrote:
| I don't think anyone reading this article would conclude
| that PG believes racism is a bigger problem than wokism.
| Which wildly diminishes the actual real-world impact of
| racism and wildly exaggerates the actual real world
| impact of wokism.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| > I grew up in the 90s and the PC culture then was
| Christianity. You couldn't say a curse word, or even
| mention the idea of sex.
|
| Wow that's not my memory of the 90s at all. We're talking
| about the decade when _Loveline_ with Drew Pinsky and
| Adam Carolla was a popular MTV show?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Cable has always pushed the boundaries a bit.
|
| I remember pearl clutching over The Simpsons in the early
| 90s, to the point where Bush Sr. got involved.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Bad_Neighbors
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| >it was more akin to "don't use a hard-r
|
| I still have to remind myself that this refers to the
| racial slur and not an intellectual one. One of the
| funniest moments of 2024 for me was watching an episode
| of the wan show where linus admitted he'd used 'the hard
| r' in the past. His co host (Lucas?) was visibly taken
| aback. Like, color drained from his face. As linus goes
| on about how *tard used to be acceptable when he was
| younger you see it slowly dawn on Lucas that Linus
| doesn't actually realize what 'hard r' means and the
| relief that his boss isn't some sort of avowed racist is
| palpable.
| tivert wrote:
| > Linus doesn't actually realize what 'hard r' means
|
| I don't either. What does it mean?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "Nigga" as used in songs etc. vs the full N-word.
| monkeycantype wrote:
| I see the problem you identify with people's behaviour and
| agree with the noisiness of people you refer to as group
| two - people who aren't thinking deeply about what they are
| saying have a lot of freedom to shoot their mouth off. To
| be very clear, I see your comment as a sincere attempt to
| articulate and respond to a problem, most discussion of
| woke isn't. While I do want to offer just one olive branch
| to people upset about woke, that yes - annoying people
| really are annoying, self-righteous twits truly are
| unbearable - but when I see someone frothing at the mouth
| because someone spoke about selfishness, hypocrisy or
| cruelty in way they didn't like, I'm generally left with
| the impression that there is no way to confront those
| topics in a way that would satisfy them. There are idiots
| everywhere - even the smartest of us are part-time idiots,
| stupidity is just the background noise we have to talk
| over, rabbiting on about woke usually seems to part
| strategic tantrum to avoid real discussion and part real
| tantrum.
|
| I think I'm looking for a way to distil the ideas you've
| expressed into a response I can use when someone complains
| about woke : `that sounds quite annoying, but let's discuss
| the idea not the idiot`
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > when I see someone frothing at the mouth because
| someone spoke about selfishness, hypocrisy or cruelty in
| way they didn't like, I'm generally left with the
| impression that there is no way to confront those topics
| in a way that would satisfy them
|
| I think you may be right here, but I think it's also
| worth looking into just _why_ this causes people to go
| into a mouth frothing rage.
|
| What I see is that a lot of "woke" starts with the
| assumption that the audience is bad, then tries to work
| backwards to prove it
|
| Of course discussions about selfishness, hypocrisy and
| cruelty are going to infuriate people when you start from
| the assumption that the people you are talking to are the
| ones who are selfish cruel hypocrites
|
| Next time you see someone make a comment about "straight
| cis white men" (or any demographic, but this one comes up
| a lot), replace it with "selfish cruel hypocrites", that
| probably would give you a good idea why that demographic
| reacts poorly to the message
| skywhopper wrote:
| You've just proven the point of the author you're
| responding to. The left isn't talking about "wokeness". But
| there are endless folks who are mad about someone being
| mean to them once who won't shut up about how the "woke
| left" is destroying social cohesion. Just because some
| people are obnoxious doesn't mean you're under the thumb of
| a conspiracy to shut you up. Sheesh.
| pksebben wrote:
| > there's been quite a bit of discussion about wokeness on
| the left.
|
| This perception is a constant cause of concern for the
| _actual_ left, and it 's created by _liberal_ politicians
| attempting to co-opt the movement, because it represents a
| huge part of their disenfranchised base.
|
| In today's reality:
|
| - left: socialist, progressive policies and in favor of
| fixing the system from the ground up. Election reform and
| the dissolution of failed establishments find support here
| (i.e. "too big to fail" was capital B "Bad"). An actual
| leftist today would say that Trump is awful, but also that
| Obama probably did more damage to us in the long term. We
| have not had a leftist in power in any surviving
| generation.
|
| - liberal: most of the democratic party. Biden's a lib, so
| was hillary. Liberal voters (somehow) believe that the
| current system can (and should) be saved by incrementalism.
| My take is that mostly, liberal politicians are pulling a
| fast one and just wanna keep that campaign money flowing,
| which is why you get a lot of talk about campaign finance
| reform and no action whatsoever. Liberals are terrified of
| ranked-choice, and economically look a whole lot like
| conservatives (we used to call this neoconservative or
| neoliberal but the distinction has become very indistinct).
|
| There's overlap in demographic between the leftist and the
| liberal - so liberal politicians have frequently used the
| "jangling keys method" and pushed stuff like wokeness real
| hard when they're trying to distract from the fact that
| they're taking money from JPMorgan and Shell Oil. Hillary
| was one of the worst - refusing point-blank to talk about
| banking as a real problem while accusing all her detractors
| of being "Bernie Bros" - which was really just a hamfisted
| smokescreen to try and turn the party against itself (this
| ended predictably).
|
| To be clear - Kamala was not remotely a leftist. She got in
| without a primary and was pro-war and pro-fracking, both
| positions totally antithetical to actual leftism.
|
| I'm of the opinion that many of the folks on the _actual_
| right and _actual_ left agree on a lot - our system is
| broken, politicians and the elite are the problem,
| inflation has gotten out of control, the economy sucks,
| housing is too expensive, and it 's not gonna get fixed by
| doing what we've always been doing. Problem is, we've been
| divided by wedge issues (some of which are truly relevant,
| like the climate) that make it impossible to form a
| coalition to accomplish actual reform. This was done on
| purpose.
|
| Liberals and Conservatives are just two marketing arms for
| the same business - business as usual. At the risk of being
| accused of being 'woke' - i'd ask that the two terms (left
| and liberal) don't get further confused. It muddies the
| conversation in ways that are destructive.
| bugglebeetle wrote:
| > By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies
| are at the same time too strong and too weak.
| tomrod wrote:
| Sounds exhausting to live with a perceived boogeyman of
| problems versus seeking real problems.
|
| Personally, I am surprised. This is a pretty unique article
| from a usually articulate thinker that leaves out significant
| details like: (1) the term originated by folks who recognize
| there can be structural inequality embedded in policy which,
| for some inequalities, has been described as structural
| racism since the 1970s; (2) the term got hijacked by
| political propaganda machines to circumspectly throw out
| working policies and other elements of progressive political
| points in the retrenchment regarding the term.
|
| There really isn't any more detail to be had unless to
| sanewash the political propaganda's claims.
| boothby wrote:
| I find it quite interesting that pg's article is so
| extensively uncurious and disdainful. He openly sneers at the
| topic he intends to explain, and tirelessly lays into a straw
| man (the FoxNews definition of woke) rather than the
| strongest interpretation (what you're doing here). Several
| commenters here have asked why his article has been flagged,
| and I must say that if it was posted as a comment, it should
| certainly be flagged because of its flagrant violations of
| the site guidelines.
|
| I certainly wouldn't be inclined to call him a prig, but he's
| certainly set himself up for exactly that denunciation with
| his specific framing of the conversation.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > He openly sneers at the topic he intends to explain, and
| tirelessly lays into a straw man (the FoxNews definition of
| woke) rather than the strongest interpretation (what you're
| doing here).
|
| It's because nobody really disagrees with "the strongest
| interpretation" and what people are taking issue with is
| the observed behavior of a subset of people who are using
| the strongest interpretation as the motte for a motte and
| bailey.
|
| This is similar to the way the word "feminist" has been
| used, where the official definition is "someone who thinks
| men and women should be treated equally" whereas the
| observed behavior of many self-described feminists might
| lead you to believe that the definition was "someone who
| thinks that any dispute between men and women should be
| resolved in favor of women", which is of course not the
| same thing. But the false feminists then retreat into the
| official definition to impugn anyone who disagrees with
| them, even when the person disagreeing is a de jure
| feminist. At which point you get de jure feminists
| denouncing the label because they don't want to be
| associated with the extremists while the extremists embrace
| the label because they want to cloak their extremism in the
| flag of reasonableness.
|
| Then people who only read the official definition and want
| to claim the label for its ostensible proponents find
| themselves getting attacked and are confused as to why.
| It's because those asshats over there are flinging poop
| while flying your flag.
| taurath wrote:
| > the observed behavior of many self-described feminists
| might lead you to believe that the definition was
| "someone who thinks that any dispute between men and
| women should be resolved in favor of women"
|
| I think there's a broader problem here, where there's a
| tendency to define all cultures by their most extreme
| elements and have conversations that are centered around
| those. This sells, this gets clicks, and it also
| decimates our theory of mind of others. The left does
| this, the right does this, centrists do this as well by
| pretending that what is "extreme" in their culture is
| unknowable and impossible.
|
| A respectful conversation with someone while holding
| curiosity can resolve most of the ills of the day. Lots
| of folks want to tell their story, and they're told that
| its not safe.
| wendyshu wrote:
| He says 'And that's the real problem -- the
| performativeness, not the social justice.'. What's wrong
| with sneering at performativeness?
| antisthenes wrote:
| It's the ultimate irony that this post is doing the exact
| same thing it is accusing another group of, with the only
| distinction being that there is no "term" attached to it.
|
| I suppose the US politics have gone so bonkers that the left
| actually uses the term "conservative right" pejoratively in
| the same way that the right uses "woke" to describe the left.
|
| In which case this scenario is so childishly insane that the
| only sane choice is to reject it all outright and focus
| inward.
| NeutralCrane wrote:
| > The complaints about, say, LatinX have far surpassed the
| number of actual proponents of it, which were a small number
| of people of the left. However, it still brought up again and
| again because it forms a useful image of what people are
| fighting against.
|
| I agree that the number of proponents of something like
| "LatinX", or "biological males playing women's sports" are
| far, far outnumbered by the people who aren't supporters of
| those things. But the issue is that the people who are
| supporters tend to be extremely vocal and generally in
| positions of power or better able to influence those who are,
| whether thats in corporate or academic administration
| settings. As such the small number of "woke" individuals are
| having outsized effects on society and culture, and the
| backlash is in response to the magnitude of that influence,
| rather than the number of people pushing for it.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Who are these super woke people in power exactly? F500
| CEOs? Politicians? Who are you talking about because I
| don't see it.
| wendyshu wrote:
| Hollywood, mainstream media, academia, most big tech, ...
| schiem wrote:
| From what I've observed, "woke" is just the latest pejorative
| used by the American political right. Before woke, there was
| "PC", "SJW", and I'm sure others that were before my time.
| Before too long, woke will dry up and get replaced with the
| next term that's broadly used in the same way.
|
| The biggest difference that I've noticed with "woke" is that
| it seems to have made its way outside of online culture and
| into the real world, so it's possible that it will have more
| staying power.
| normalaccess wrote:
| Even Obama is not a fan of "woke" culture and calls it out
| for the hollow vapid gotcha politics that it is:
| https://youtu.be/qaHLd8de6nM
| gspencley wrote:
| Language is fluid. Historically look at words like "hacker."
| People start to use words colloquially in ways that the
| originators of the word did not necessarily intend.
|
| "Troll" is another one. It used to mean a person who posted a
| contentious comment that they knew would invoke a flame war
| so that they could sit back and wait to see who "bit." It
| came from fishing. These days it can just mean someone who is
| rude on the Internet.
|
| You're not wrong, the "opposition" did take the word and run
| with it for their own use. No dispute there.
|
| But let's not pretend that this is a conservative vs
| progressive thing. On the partisan isle I'm "neither." But
| when someone uses the word "woke", in conversation, I usually
| know exactly what they're getting at. And I hear it from
| left-leaning friends and right-leaning alike.
|
| It's a short-cut umbrella term to mean an amalgamation of a)
| moral busybodies b) purity spirals c) cancel culture d) some
| bizarre racist philosophy that markets itself as anti-racist
| (critical race theory) and e) an extreme version of political
| correctness.
|
| I'm not arguing whether or not left-wingers are (or aren't)
| using it themselves in serious conversation. Only that,
| colloquially, I've only encountered confusion about what it
| means in Internet forum discussions with like-minded nerds,
| such as this one. The average person I talk to has little
| difficulty.
|
| And maybe that definition was shaped, wholly or in part, by
| the conservatives making it out to be a boogeyman. Even if
| so, and even if it was an unfair hijack and it's appropriate
| to hate on them for doing so, it doesn't change how people
| interpret the word in casual conversation today.
| heresie-dabord wrote:
| > "Woke", for the most part, is a boogeyman that the
| conservative right uses
|
| Yes, it is an ingenious sort of strawman.
|
| In its prior usage, to be "woke" meant to be informed, alert,
| and to resist being bullied or easily duped into
| relinquishing one's rights to object, to defend oneself, and
| to dissent.
|
| In this sense -- I note with some irony -- Jordan Peterson
| was "woke" when he would not allow his students to coerce him
| into using terms of address that he rejected.
|
| Now the usage on the "Right" in US politics in particular
| uses "woke" to mean hypocritical or superficial assertions,
| positions, and policies that serve a dubious objective or
| prove to have no foundation in facts -- especially if these
| are the opponents' views.
|
| Flinging these accusations of hypocrisy and delusional
| policy-making has become more important than defending
| democracy itself. Herein lies the masterstroke of the
| messaging. Using the term "woke" to attack supposedly "woke"
| opponents has become a memetic (viral) behaviour that has
| completely devoured political and public discourse.
| wendyshu wrote:
| It's not a straw man, it's an identification of the midwit,
| i.e. the middle level of meta-contrarianism.
| lazyeye wrote:
| "Many political groups do this: they identify some aspect of
| the opposition, preferably one that is easy to ridicule, and
| then repeat those accusations ad-nauseum."
|
| Yes this is very common on the left too. Really common
| actually.
| wendyshu wrote:
| > The complaints about, say, LatinX have far surpassed the
| number of actual proponents of it, which were a small number
| of people of the left.
|
| Even if true, so what? People are still pushing it.
| rayiner wrote:
| The left doesn't talk about "wokeness" but it certainly does
| talk about the individual policies that fall under that
| rubric. The right uses the label "woke" for the same reason
| the left uses the term "capitalism." There's a bunch of ideas
| and policies that stem from similar ideological premises and
| it's perfectly fine to group them together under labels.
|
| For example, Latinex is by itself just one thing. But there's
| also BIPOC. There's also race conscious hiring and promotion
| decisions. They are all ideologically related and add up to
| something quite significant.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I think it's much simpler than that. Woke is power, it's a
| moral position that can be used like a club to force others
| into a specific line of thinking. While it's basic mission of
| recognizing discrimination, etc. around us, it morphed into a
| political and societal weapon to force people and institutions
| to do certain things, like establishing DEI offices.
| prewett wrote:
| I doubt that its mission was ever recognizing discrimination,
| etc., or at least hasn't been in a long time. Otherwise the
| "sin" could be atonable: just repent of your discriminition
| and try not to do it. But being white, and/or being male is
| "privileged" and cannot be atoned for, because the "sin" is
| inherent. It actually does not matter how you act, the
| problem is that some white people who were frequently male
| did bad things and their actions are imputed to the whole
| group. However, you can at least not be like _those_ people,
| and adopt wokeness with varying loudness. You can cover your
| "sins" with loud agreement, but you can never atone for them.
| Which is just a power play, as you note. This is not
| surprising from a group that says that "truth is just
| knowledges [sic] promulgated by the powerful to maintain
| their power and privilege".
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > i.e. the morality of homelessness and not having a disdain
| for them but empathy for them instead.
|
| Ok, I'll bite. What _is_ having empathy for the homeless? Is
| allowing unconstrained immigration to increase competition for
| entry-level positions empathy? What about restrictions on
| construction that make housing completely unaffordable? Is that
| empathy? Is leaving the drug-addicted portion of the homeless
| out on the street to battle their addictions on their own
| empathy[1]?
|
| Saying nice words (not having disdain) is not the same thing as
| helping someone.
|
| [1] https://freddiedeboer.substack.com/p/you-call-that-
| compassio...
| suzzer99 wrote:
| I am very sympathetic to the idea that some harm-reduction
| policies do more to enable drug addiction among the homeless
| than help them.
|
| But the immigration stuff is just right-wing nonsense. a) We
| don't have anything like unrestrained immigration, that's
| propaganda. Obama and Biden both deported more people than
| any other presidents in history to that point
| (https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/biden-deportation-
| re..., https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obamas-deportation-
| policy-nu...). And b) the percentage of homeless who might
| compete with a Honduran immigrant for a day-laborer job is a
| tiny sliver.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| On the immigration issue, I'm mostly speaking from personal
| experience. I think this issue, just like immigration
| itself, is very regional and doesn't present the same way
| everywhere. In the town where I live it's now basically
| impossible to get an entry level job - the competition is
| fierce[1]. This is a result of a mass influx of foreign
| students thanks to a local diploma mill. Not surprisingly,
| the rents and homeless population have increased rapidly
| over the same period.
|
| [1] https://www.therecord.com/news/waterloo-region/massive-
| lineu...
| CFLAddLoader wrote:
| While "Empathy for the homeless" can situationally mean
| talking nicely about them, it also means stopping, blocking,
| and undoing directly terrible actions against the homeless.
|
| Bulldozing peoples' stuff is in fact pretty bad. Having laws
| against giving money to people is in fact pretty bad. Putting
| hostile architecture everywhere is in fact pretty bad. People
| make decisions, over and over again, to not just hurt
| homeless people, but also hurt the people trying to help
| homeless people.
|
| Stopping people from doing that is called "empathy for the
| homeless". It's called that because saying and feeling bad
| things about people is part of the process of hurting them.
| It's how people agree who is and isn't okay to hurt. By
| stopping group efforts to make things worse, you only have to
| worry about random individuals trying to make things worse
| for other random individuals. Which is unstoppable but
| untargeted.
| pdimitar wrote:
| Sounds nice and virtuous... until you remember there exist
| gangs of homeless people who mug law-abiding citizens,
| retreat into the structures that you want defended from
| demolishing, and cry victim when people want to stop their
| crimes. Not to mention they use the said structures as a
| hub to distribute drugs to the local community of
| teenagers.
|
| You see, the problem with every such discussion is the lack
| of nuance and the willingness to demonize e.g. parents who
| want their kids to be safe in their neighborhoods.
|
| What you call lack of empathy for the homeless is, in some
| instances, the concern and actions of the said parents.
|
| So do these parents truly lack empathy, how do you think?
| Or they say "no matter what hand life dealt you, please
| just stay away from my kids"?
|
| What's your opinion?
| kardianos wrote:
| Woke is critical construcivism.
|
| The belief consists of two parts:
|
| 1. That truth is socially constructed thus when we see bad
| things, it means society created these bad things.
|
| 2. In order to determine what parts of society to cut-out to
| make society better, so bad things stop happening, use a
| critical theory to determine who should be removed from society
| so it can be more equitable (usually the stand in for good.
|
| Woke normally holds that goodness is when results are equal,
| and if they are not equal, they have license to adjust them to
| equal (This is the core argument of Marxism, though woke could
| be said to be identity or social Marxism rather then just the
| economic Marxism presented, though in practice class identity
| was present from the start as well and expanded in practice
| under Mao).
| glitchc wrote:
| This is where wokeism falls apart as an ideology: It is
| outcome driven instead of opportunity driven. Equality
| becomes the goal regardless of motivation, ambition or merit.
| Why would the best, or more broadly anyone better than
| average, participate in such a society? What's their
| incentive?
|
| When you define woke this way, you ultimately admit that
| wokeism is just a veneer of identity politics layered over
| good old-fashioned communism. The problem with communism is
| that it sounds great, but doesn't work. How many times must
| it fail before people realize that?
| Supermancho wrote:
| > participate in such a
| sociehttps://news.ycombinator.com/newsty? What's their
| incentive?
|
| This has never made sense to me. People don't need an
| external motivator. People who like to collect things or
| complete puzzle (including high performers), do so because
| they like to collect them, not because society rewards
| them. It generally penalizes them as it's wasted time or
| capital. Granted, sometimes recognition is a good
| motivator, but that's fleeting over a non-trivial timeline
| (like a season) and not specifically tied to society at
| large (eg the longest running game of Tag).
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I don't mind having 'equality' on the basics. I would
| gladly pay the taxes necessary to ensure my fellow man has
| access to food, housing, healthcare and maybe a few other
| things needed to live a life with dignity. I think that's
| the whole premise behind UBI, and we're going to have to
| make our peace with it.
|
| There will _always_ be 'incentive' to work and gain more
| than the very basics. Honestly, given how much of our
| science has been written by 'gentlemen scholars' who were
| rich enough to be able to pursue their field without worry
| of putting food on the table, it may well advance humanity.
| prewett wrote:
| But #1 is wrong and #2 is abusive.
|
| There is no such thing as "society", just relationships
| between individual people. To get a better "society", you
| need people to act better. However, all of recorded history
| suggests that people are pretty universally willing to use
| other people as tools to benefit themselves. (Obviously not
| everyone does this all the time or to the same amount.)
| History also makes it clear that passing laws will not work:
| despite laws against things that are evenly timelessly non-
| virtuous, like stealing and murder, do not prevent murder and
| theft. In fact in Judeo-Christian thinking, to do this
| requires people receiving a "new heart, a heart of flesh
| instead of a heart of stone" from God. (I saw "Judeo-"
| because the passages is from Ezekiel, which is common to
| both. I do not know if rabbinical thinking agrees, however.)
| Even if it does not require a divine gift, certainly the
| problem has proven intractable up to the present time.
|
| "determine who should be removed from society" is just a
| scary thought. Who gets to determine that? How can we be sure
| they are right? What prevents them from using this as a tool
| to eliminate people that are competitors or whom they simply
| dislike? In fact, this has a name: "to purge". The Soviet
| Union under Stalin and the Chinese Cultural Revolution were
| scary times.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > History also makes it clear that passing laws will not
| work: despite laws against things that are evenly
| timelessly non-virtuous, like stealing and murder, do not
| prevent murder and theft.
|
| They probably _reduce it_ a bit.
| bpt3 wrote:
| > "determine who should be removed from society" is just a
| scary thought. Who gets to determine that? How can we be
| sure they are right?
|
| I am extremely socially liberal, but have a very hard time
| aligning myself with the left because most members of that
| constituency seem completely incapable of recognizing this.
| They're so eager to repeat the errors of the leftist
| policies you list (along with other clearly non leftist
| examples like the Salem witch trials) that they're a danger
| to society.
|
| They're zealots and need to be treated accordingly.
| ComposedPattern wrote:
| > In fact in Judeo-Christian thinking, to do this requires
| people receiving a "new heart, a heart of flesh instead of
| a heart of stone" from God. (I saw "Judeo-" because the
| passages is from Ezekiel, which is common to both. I do not
| know if rabbinical thinking agrees, however.)
|
| It doesn't. Judaism holds that the soul starts out pure,
| having been made in the image of G-d, and it only becomes
| impure through wrongdoing. All humans are born with an
| impulse to do evil, the Yetzer Hara, but we're also created
| with the power to overcome it. And when we have done evil,
| we have the ability to atone and return our souls to the
| pure state they were created in. That happens, for
| instance, on Yom Kippur.
|
| The context of the verse from Ezekiel is:
|
| > O mortal, when the House of Israel dwelt on their own
| soil, they defiled it with their ways and their deeds [...]
| So I poured out My wrath on them [...] I scattered them
| among the nations [...] But when they came to those
| nations, they caused My holy name to be profaned, in that
| it was said of them, "These are GOD's people, yet they had
| to leave their land." [...] Say to the House of Israel:
| Thus said the Sovereign GOD: Not for your sake will I act,
| O House of Israel, but for My holy name, which you have
| caused to be profaned among the nations to which you have
| come. [...] I will take you from among the nations and
| gather you from all the countries, and I will bring you
| back to your own land. I will sprinkle pure water upon you,
| and you shall be purified: I will purify you from all your
| defilement and from all your fetishes. And I will give you
| a new heart and put a new spirit into you: I will remove
| the heart of stone from your body and give you a heart of
| flesh;" https://www.sefaria.org/Ezekiel.36.17-26
|
| Ezekiel lived during the Babylonian exile. At face value,
| the text is saying that the people of Israel have been
| exiled because of their sins, but it makes a prophecy that
| G-d will cause them to stop sinning and return them to
| their land. That eventually did happen under Cyrus the
| Great. This is a constant cycle in the bible: When things
| are good, the Israelites forget G-d's teachings. Then
| something bad happens, but G-d redeems the Israelites from
| their suffering, which leads them to follow G-d again. Then
| thing get good again, and they start to forget G-d once
| more...
|
| When it says that G-d will give the house of Israel a new
| heart, it's not (at face value) saying that individual
| people will literally receive new spirits (or otherwise be
| metaphysically transformed). Nor is it saying that G-d will
| literally sprinkle water on them. These are poetic ways of
| saying that the house of Israel will stop worshiping idols
| (etc), the same way that happened many times before in the
| Torah. You can of course add a layer of exegesis and make
| it about individual believers today instead of the nation
| of Israel in Babylonia of the 6th-century BCE. That's fine,
| the rabbinic tradition does that sort of thing all the time
| too. But at that point you're firmly in Christian territory
| and not in the space shared between Judaism and
| Christianity.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Points one and two are both functionalism, not
| constructivism. This is Sociology 101. The idea that all
| parts of society have a function, even the bad parts is not
| constructionist, it's structualist.
|
| Constructivism would be that we created the idea that they
| are legitimate social objects (ie: they exist) and two that
| they have an essential moral characteristic (eg: they're
| bad).
|
| Marx was a conflict theorist whose main point was that
| economic structures and social structures are inexorably
| linked. The point of Capital Vol 1 was that through a series
| of implications, the difference between exchange value and
| use value ultimately results in conflict between owners and
| workers.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| You're right. It's really lazy to use the term at this point as
| there isn't a shared meaning assigned to it. It's mostly used
| as a pejorative by the right at this point, but it's original
| meaning was very different and indicated a positive attribute.
| Whenever I'm in a conversation with someone who uses the word,
| I stop them and ask them to define what they're talking about.
| Usually they end up with something vague that boils down to
| "stuff I don't like".
| causal wrote:
| I liked PG's attempts to define the perjorative form of
| "wokeness". I was disappointed that the rest of the essay
| didn't serve the discourse much.
|
| What I was really hoping for was focused analysis on how to
| make social media more useful to the earnest helpers instead
| of the "loud prigs". That would have made for an interesting
| discussion here.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| The problem is that he thinks he solves the problem by
| bringing 'prig' into the conversation and in reality he
| just paints a broad swath of people with a broad brush. A
| lot of folks who are in the "earnest helpers" category are
| also categorized by the right as "woke". That's the problem
| with the word right now, it can go all over the place.
|
| "Prig" is in the eye of the beholder. What about when the
| "prigs" were right? I'm sure the Quakers were seen as
| "prigs" by the southern slaveholders/traders. The Quakers
| were early to the abolition party and their opposition to
| slavery was based on religious zeal which made them seem
| like "prigs" to the people in the South who's whole society
| and economy was built on slavery. But we now consider the
| Quakers were right and the slaveholders wrong. MLK was
| viewed as a "prig" by many southern whites for interfering
| in their racism. But MLK was right.
| causal wrote:
| I agree. The essay seems to assume there are clean lines
| separating the "good ones" from the "bad ones". It's very
| reductionist.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Step one is to stop the handwringing over who's "woke".
| Paul is committing every sin he claims the "woke" people
| are doing by obsessing over what words other people are
| saying instead of trying to solve actual problems.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| You are dismissing the issue by implying it is a right wing
| thing.
|
| Obama is using the term and criticising people who do it in
| this clip. I in no way consider him to be right wing.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
| lazyeye wrote:
| Not too mention Bill Maher who is also firmly on the left.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > not having a disdain for them but empathy for them instead
|
| [4] The woke sometimes claim that wokeness is simply treating
| people with respect. But if it were, that would be the only
| rule you'd have to remember, and this is comically far from
| being the case. My younger son likes to imitate voices, and at
| one point when he was about seven I had to explain which
| accents it was currently safe to imitate publicly and which
| not. It took about ten minutes, and I still hadn't covered all
| the cases.
| josh-sematic wrote:
| Treating people with respect can sometimes mean learning
| enough about them to understand a little about what life is
| like in their shoes. There are a lot of different kinds of
| people wearing a lot of shoes. Learning about them is a
| lifelong process. It's not about learning "a long list of
| rules" but more "learning about a lot of kinds of people and
| their experiences."
| Larrikin wrote:
| Anyone using the term woke in 2025 is using the term in bad
| faith and to create the bogeyman you describe.
|
| It's actually hard to find the time when anyone on the left
| actually used it. Seems like it was a little under a year and
| the term was dropped to be more specific actions.
| diggan wrote:
| Reading and understanding the article beyond the title, it's
| just a term that used to be called something else before, and
| will be called something else in the future. I think you're
| focusing too much on the actual word, rather than the
| "movement", which is what pg's article is really about.
| Larrikin wrote:
| The point is that anyone using the term woke is using it in
| bad faith or if they think they are not using it
| offensively then it's poorly researched.
| diggan wrote:
| So anyone discussing/posting thoughts about "woke" and
| "wokeness" are using it in bad faith? Would it matter if
| the person puts a positive or negative spin on it, or are
| some topics just straight up "no no" to discuss?
|
| Seems like we should aim to critique the content of
| articles, not just critique the usage of a single word.
| But you do you.
| zug_zug wrote:
| I think it's okay to refer to the word "woke", but if you
| use it more than 3 times in your writing, then it's hard
| to take you seriously.
|
| Why?
|
| Because it's a word that gets people emotional. Getting
| people emotional is the opposite of what you want to do
| when you're trying to intellectually dissect something.
| But it's exactly what you want to do when you're grinding
| a gear.
|
| It's just like if somebody wrote a piece about trump, but
| mentioned he was a felon 4+ times, you'd know they
| weren't writing an unemotional thinkpiece.
| diggan wrote:
| > I think it's okay to refer to the word "woke", but if
| you use it more than 3 times in your writing, then it's
| hard to take you seriously.
|
| But when the essay is specifically about where "wokeness"
| comes from and what (pg) understands it to mean, then it
| has to be OK to use it more than 3 times?
|
| > Because it's a word that gets people emotional. Getting
| people emotional is the opposite of what you want to do
| when you're trying to intellectually dissect something
|
| Some terms are so charged that it's virtually impossible
| to have discussions without any emotional reactions to
| it. "Woke" seems to be one of those subjects/terms (at
| least judging by this submission), so if you try to shy
| away from it just because of that, isn't that a
| disservice as a whole? We need to be able to discuss and
| think about hard things too, not just fun and happy
| stuff.
|
| > It's just like if somebody wrote a piece about trump,
| but mentioned he was a felon 4+ times, you'd know they
| weren't writing an unemotional thinkpiece.
|
| But the comparison here would be an article whose purpose
| is to detailed how Trump is a felon, then obviously it'd
| make sense that it gets brought up, it's the subject of
| the text.
| zug_zug wrote:
| I don't think you're discussing in good faith.
|
| I doubt you're truly unaware that everybody saying woke
| in 2025 unironically is angry and making an insult.
|
| I also don't believe you could read this comment section
| and think PG didn't get everybody emotional (and mostly
| confused about his point too), or that he tried very hard
| not to.
| diggan wrote:
| > Anyone using the term woke in 2025 is using the term in
| bad faith
|
| This was the initial claim. It got me curious how we're
| supposed to be able to discuss emotionally charged
| subjects, if you can't bring it up without getting the
| label "you're doing that in bad faith" slapped on you.
|
| I disagree with most of pg's article, and I'm very left-
| leaning myself. But I also find it very worthwhile to
| find a sensible way to disagree with people, even if it's
| emotional. It's important we're able to understand and
| see good points no matter the delivery mechanism, or no
| matter how much we disagree with a person (like me, here
| with pg who I don't agree with at all, on most matters).
|
| > I doubt you're truly unaware that everybody saying woke
| in 2025 unironically is angry and making an insult.
|
| This is probably the first article/comment section I read
| about "wokeness" in at least a couple of years. I'm a
| left-leaning (European) person far away from American
| politics, so I am not aware of how the left/right of the
| US currently use the term. I saw the essay, read through
| the thing and now I'm here, reading through comments.
|
| > I also don't believe you could read this comment
| section and think PG didn't get everybody emotional (and
| mostly confused about his point too), or that he tried
| very hard not to.
|
| No, I do think he got people emotional, and I don't think
| he tried or didn't try to make people emotional, it seems
| to be a very heavy topic for Americans (right or left),
| so I'd wager it's impossible to discuss it without
| emotions. Some topics just are like that, and that's not
| necessarily wrong or bad.
| slothtrop wrote:
| I like this take: https://web.archive.org/web/20230404013504/
| https://freddiede...
|
| I think it's a farce to suggest that no one out there could
| be accurately described by it (identity politics being more
| important than class, language policing, etc)
| crackercrews wrote:
| The VP famously used it half a dozen times in this short
| clip. [1] It was apparently well-known enough of a term that
| she didn't define it.
|
| IIRC usage didn't really drop off until 2020 or after. That
| was when conservatives started using the term in a negative
| way and progressives abandoned it.
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53A6wcgbxEM
| gitfan86 wrote:
| You obviously didn't read the article. He calls out how
| virtue signallers quickly change what the rules are around
| which word are OK.
|
| Here is someone who you may or may not consider to be a far
| right bad actor explaining what woke is:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM
| throw101010qwe wrote:
| I think this is the problem. The left are all too willing to
| define things for everyone else. I would consider myself very
| center in American politics but would not agree with your
| definition. Woke to many is basically the large voices on the
| left, I see them in the same light as a far right talking head.
|
| EDIT: Proof with all the immediate downvotes for just
| expressing an opinion. The left is just as sick as the right
| these days.
| electriclove wrote:
| There are many things on which I don't agree with pg. But I
| feel he is accurate with describing wokeness as the term is
| commonly used currently. He doesn't go into the history of the
| word in this essay.
| greycol wrote:
| You certainly don't use it to mean "those crazy people who
| are pro interacial marriage" but some do. The woke people
| supporting trans rights almost certainly don't support macho
| man randy savage chucking on a dress and that same day
| competing in the olympics but the characture that supports it
| is part of the woke mob.
|
| People scoff and think of course I know what woke means,
| because the people the people they talk to/media they consume
| have the word at roughly the same level of meaning, not
| internalising the next more or less extreme group that isn't
| in their social circle include more or less in the meaning.
|
| These days the word woke might as well serve the same purpose
| as "If by scotsman..." in that no one will disagree with you
| unless you get into specifics.
| ToValueFunfetti wrote:
| The only people who could plausibly define 'woke' as 'people
| who investigate their own values and have empathy' are people
| who consider themselves woke and are sufficiently under pg's
| 'prig' definition to believe that is exclusive to them, and
| sociopaths. What emotionally normal person would say membership
| of another group is defined by 'basic human decency' and
| 'thinking about whether their objectives are any good'?
| abstractbill wrote:
| A friend and I love to send each other examples of ridiculous
| things being labeled "woke". Lately we are spoiled for choice.
| British tabloid newspapers are an especially good source.
|
| In his post, pg says _" Political correctness seemed to burn
| out in the second half of the 1990s. One reason, perhaps the
| main reason, was that it literally became a joke. It offered
| rich material for comedians, who performed their usual
| disinfectant action upon it."_
|
| What I remember the most from that time period was comedians
| making jokes about exactly this effect: At some point people
| started labeling _everything_ they didn 't like as "political
| correctness", and the phrase lost all meaning.
|
| (I don't have particularly strong feelings about pg's essay
| tbh. I've personally managed to completely ignore political
| correctness and wokeness without anything bad happening).
| LeroyRaz wrote:
| Why and how is labelling unlikable behaviour as woke bad faith.
| As I understand the right using the term, they use it
| consistently to refer to a very specific type of behaviour they
| see as bad (one core aspect is prioritising signalling being
| virtuous over actually improving the world).
|
| Is your complaint that this usage unfairly co-opts the original
| left usage of the word?
| thruway516 wrote:
| Imagine I wrote an essay on Christianity and based it
| entirely on the behavior of evangelicals in the South who
| attend megachurchies (a very vocal minority). Surely you'd
| expect other Christians (all around the world) who equally
| claim true usage to object.
| bpt3 wrote:
| I think the similarities to a religion are a strong
| indication that there's a serious issue
| skywhopper wrote:
| You give them far too much credit. But more importantly, ask
| yourself who's really the morality police at this point? The
| ones screaming "woke" all the time, vowing to strip "woke"
| people out of positions of power, seem pretty dangerous to
| me.
| blackeyeblitzar wrote:
| One thing I wanted to point out: I've seen a lot of people on
| HN and elsewhere allege that moderates or the "right" (in
| quotes because it is overused as a pejorative label) cannot
| define what "woke" is. But I disagree, and think most people
| who complain against this term can easily point to what ideas
| it represents, and what it means to them. Even if that is not
| very precise, it is real and meaningful. Enough so that they
| can find common ground with other people who use the word, even
| if they aren't exact matches. The accusation that people can't
| define it is itself a tactic meant to undermine the credibility
| of complaints against it. But is it really any less imprecise
| than people using broad labels of other kinds (things like
| liberal or conservative)?
| dmarcos wrote:
| I agree. Wokeness has a very precise meaning: World is
| divided between oppressors and oppressed. Oppressors are
| white heterosexual men (white supremacy / heteropatriarchy)
| everyone else subjugated to them. Institutions, laws are
| created to perpetuate that power and must be dismantled /
| subverted via revolution.
|
| Most understand it even if they can't articulate a
| definition. Easy to point out when a movie or corporate
| initiative, behavior is woke.
| toddmorey wrote:
| What Paul Graham misses is the "aggressively performative
| moralism" that appeared in response to wokeism. For those
| hungry for attention, it was a very useful enemy. In many ways,
| the narrative of what it even meant to be "woke" was quickly
| hijacked and controlled by those opposed to it. Deriding anyone
| of color in a leadership position as a DEI hire is a good
| example. None of this was a call for reason or to return to
| balance. It was an equally performative stunt to cast anything
| that event hinted at inclusiveness as evil intent.
| rayiner wrote:
| There is nothing "bad faith" about appropriating an evocative
| term to label ideologically connected ideas. It's like how the
| left uses the term "capitalism."
|
| In the last few years, we have seen corporations and
| universities push for race-conscious hiring and promotion
| decisions, while schools are putting kids in racially
| segregated affinity groups. These are obviously ideologically
| related efforts. It's perfectly fine for opponents of these
| efforts to group them together under the label of "woke."
| anon291 wrote:
| Both characterizations actually mean the same thing and you
| said it in your description of the person on the left. Because,
| thinking that a right-wing solution to homelessness 'lacks
| empathy' and only you have empathy for the homeless is exactly
| the sort of self-righteousness the right correctly criticizes.
| atoav wrote:
| [delayed]
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > a mob of angry people uniting on social media to get someone
| ostracized or fired
|
| Worth noting that this arose by the specific design of the social
| media ownership. The "correct" side was artificially boosted and
| the incorrect side was censored. The outraged would have just
| cancelled each other out otherwise.
| etchalon wrote:
| There will never be anything funnier than a massive article which
| talks about the "origin of wokeness" that fails to, at any point,
| talk about the actual origin of "wokeness" - Black communities
| online.
| fatbird wrote:
| This is the greatest weakness of an already weak essay.
| pohl wrote:
| Interesting to compare this narrative to "A history of
| 'wokeness'". (Specifically, it's interesting that the "origins"
| seem to have very little to do with the history.)
|
| https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-hist...
| verdverm wrote:
| Came to share the same link, much better piece than PG's
| pron wrote:
| > Fortunately when the aggressively conventional-minded go on the
| rampage they always do one thing that gives them away: they
| define new heresies to punish people for
|
| If the "conventional-minded" define _new_ heresies, against a
| _new_ creed, how are they conventional? What gives Paul Graham
| away is what he doesn 't mention and may be what bothers him
| more: the old heresies that the surprisingly innovative and even
| rebellious "conventional-minded" abolish. (Actually, they do
| neither, but those who believe the former also believe the
| latter)
|
| As with the myth of the "cancel culture" that Graham mentions (or
| the similar myth of "the war on Christmas"), the problem isn't
| the truth of certain events that do occur. It is the exaggeration
| of magnitude and ignorance of context. Clearly, at no stage in
| human history were more people not only free but also able to
| widely disseminate a wider range of views as they are today.
| Specifically, far fewer people are "silenced" at universities
| today than were, say, in the 1950s (except, maybe, in super-woke
| Florida).
|
| > College students larp. It's their nature. It's usually
| harmless. But larping morality turned out to be a poisonous
| combination.
|
| Yeah, larping in a world of Jewish cabals and weather/mind
| control has turned out to be far more poisonous.
|
| Anyway, for a more interesting and astute perspective on
| wokeness, see https://samkriss.substack.com/p/wokeness-is-not-a-
| politics Kriss shows why comparing wokeness to socialism or
| Christianity -- as Graham does -- is a category error:
|
| > [I]t's not a politics, or an ideology, or a religion. If you've
| ever spent any time in a political movement, or a religious one--
| even a philosophical one--you'll have noticed that these things
| always have sects. Small differences in doctrine turn into
| antagonistic little groups. There are dozens of denominations
| that all claim to be the universal catholic church. Put two
| Marxists in a room and you'll get three different ideological
| schisms. ... But it's hard to see any such thing happening in any
| of the movements that get described as woke. Black Lives Matter
| did not have a 'left' or a 'right' wing; the different rainbow
| flags did not belong to rival queer militia ... The spaces these
| movements produce might be the sites of constant churning mutual
| animosity and backstabbing, but the faultlines are always
| interpersonal and never substantive. This is very, very unusual.
| Of course, there's always the possibility that the woke mind
| virus is so perfectly bioengineered that it's left all its
| victims without any capacity for dissent whatsoever, permanently
| trapped in a zombielike groupthink daze. This is the kind of
| possibility that a lot of antiwoke types like to entertain. Let
| me sketch out an alternative view.
|
| > ... Wokeness is an _etiquette_. There are no sects within
| wokeness for the same reason that there are no sects on whether
| you should hold a wine glass by the bowl or by the stem. It's not
| really about dogmas or beliefs, in the same way that table
| manners are not the _belief_ that you should only hold a fork
| with your left hand.
|
| > ... What makes something woke is a very simple operation: the
| transmutation of political demands into basically arbitrary
| standards of interpersonal conduct. The goal is never to actually
| overcome any existing injustices; political issues are just a way
| to conspicuously present yourself as the right kind of person.
|
| > ... Unlike _wokeness_ , the word _antiwokeness_ is still used
| as a self-descriptor. The antiwoke will announce themselves to
| you. They won't deny that antiwokeness exists. But since there's
| no fixed and generally agreed-upon account of what the object of
| this apophatic doctrine actually is, you could be forgiven for
| wondering whether it is, in fact, particularly real. Wokeness is
| not a politics. And antiwokeness is not a politics either. It's a
| shew-stone
|
| > Every day, the antiwoke are busy _producing_ wokeness, catching
| visions of incorporeal powers, desperately willing this thing
| into colder and denser form. What does this look like? Hysteria
| over uncouth material in entertainment media. Pseudo-sociological
| dogshit jargon. Endless smug performances of wholesome trad
| virtue. To be antiwoke is to be just another type of person who
| mistakes etiquette for politics, putting all your energies into
| the terrain of gesture and appearance, obsessed with images,
| frothing at every new indecency, horrified, appalled. We must
| protect the children from harm! I'm sure that some day very soon,
| the antiwoke will have their own miserable cultural hegemony. Big
| companies organising compulsory free-speech training for their
| workers. An informal network of censors scrubbing the mass media
| of anything that smacks too much of progressive tyranny.
| tome wrote:
| Do religious and political movements always develop such sects
| within a decade or so of their founding? If not then I'm not
| sure wokeness has existed for sufficient time (since the mid
| 2010s in the form it's discussed in the article I think) that
| the analysis you present here applies.
|
| But I still find the analysis interesting. I think one
| difference between wokeness and political and religious
| movements is that wokeness doesn't seem to have a doctrine.
| pron wrote:
| It's questionable in what way wokeness exists at all without
| a clear definition. Graham's definition is more personal
| judgment than definition, but according to him, whatever he
| thinks it is seems to be about 30 years old. Bolshevik-
| Mensheviks and Trotskyists-Stalinists sects appeared faster
| than that (the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks split a mere 5 years
| after the creation of the party).
|
| Also, I think Sam Kriss's point about sects and splits was
| meant to be taken in humour. Funnily enough, both Kriss and
| Graham seem obsessed with convincing the reader they're not
| boring. But whereas Graham's writing is predictable though he
| repeatedly insists on telling the reader that his old-school
| conventionalism is the true rebelliousness, Kriss writes
| provocatively in a way that's supposed to make you unsure of
| whether he's serious or not. In any event, Kriss's writing is
| at least always entertaining even when it isn't interesting.
| tome wrote:
| Right, and maybe one of the reasons that we don't see a
| split is _because_ there is no clear definition, no clear
| boundaries. But perhaps we can find splits if we look more
| carefully. One notion that could be indicative of a split
| is "white women's tears".
| mwcampbell wrote:
| > What gives Paul Graham away is what he doesn't mention and
| may be what bothers him more: the old heresies that the
| surprisingly innovative and even rebellious "conventional-
| minded" abolish.
|
| Can you give an example of what you mean here?
| pron wrote:
| I'll try, but it's a little tricky because, again, I don't
| think wokeness (whatever it is, although I agree with Graham
| that the term is usually applied to some superficial
| performance) actually does much of anything. Graham and other
| centrists latch on to cases where "heretics" are banished,
| but the sparsity of these cases only demonstrates how few of
| them are punished. Furthermore, centrists often emphasise how
| productive and useful past movements were in contrast to
| excessive and ineffectual current ones (I would say that the
| use of such a claim is the defining characteristic of the
| centrist). Of course, they say this at any point in time, and
| because the effect of current and recent movements is often
| yet to be seen, the centrists are always vindicated in the
| present. If a movement does happen to be effective relatively
| quickly -- say, support of gay marriage -- the centrist
| retroactively excludes it from the PC category (note that the
| most significant successes in the gay rights movement
| coincided with Graham's wokeness, but he doesn't even mention
| that).
|
| Anyway, to answer your question: the same people who make up
| new heresies also challenge old creeds. In the case of
| wokeness, what's being challenged is the centre's (neoliberal
| or neocon) belief in its rationality, meritocracy, and
| objectivity. For example, Graham mentions "woke agendas",
| highlighting DEI (never mind that DEI is a new version -- and
| an aspirationally less excessive one -- of the 60s'
| affirmative action), but while he focuses on the ineffective
| performative aspects, he ignores the underlying claim which
| remains a heresy to _him_ : That the old meritocracy is not
| what it claims to be, and that it, too, is missing out on
| "Einsteins" (to use his terminology) due to its ingrained
| biases.
| RangerScience wrote:
| All of "wokeness", "social justice", etc, when you look at the
| "forest not the trees" ends up pretty simple:
|
| One group of people is saying: "This hurts, please stop", to
| which the other group says: "No".
|
| So the first goes back to the drawing board to come up with
| reasons, theories, explanations, convincing arguments... and you
| get things like critical race theory, systemic *isms, etc.
|
| That's pretty much it. Sure, there's other bits in there - about
| accomplishing the "stop", or about handling emotions around
| blame, or about handling your own hurt, etc - but, at the end of
| the day?
|
| It's really just people saying "this hurts, please stop", and
| what forms around the response when the response is "No".
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > One group of people is saying: "This hurts, please stop"
|
| But the entire article you're criticizing can be summed up as
| "wokeness hurts, please stop". To which you say, "No".
| p4bl0 wrote:
| > _Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness_
|
| This is a fake news. Research shows that Twitter algorithmic
| amplification favored right-wing politics even before Musk made
| it even worse. See:
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
|
| > _On the other hand, the people on the far left have only
| themselves to blame; they could tilt Twitter back to the left
| tomorrow if they wanted to._
|
| Being this much clueless in pg's position is not possible. I can
| only assume he's consciously lying. He can see front row what
| Musk does with Twitter and how the "free speech" he's supposedly
| defending is actually "what Musk likes to hear speech", and he
| perfectly knows Musk is strongly aligned with the far right that
| he supports however he can all over the world. See for example:
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-dou...
| jiriknesl wrote:
| Can you prove it? Do you have any proof that Twitter promotes
| right leaning views more than left leaning ones?
|
| "When You're Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like
| Oppression"
|
| Twitter was discriminating against right leaning views. Extreme
| far left views (like communism) were absolutely OK and
| widespread on Twitter. If one had as extreme right leaning
| views, he would be shadowbanned, reprioritised etc.
|
| What is Twitter now is a fair game. Every voice is heard the
| same. What Twitter is doing now should have been the norm the
| whole time.
|
| And the same is true for all major social networks, search
| engines, public funded media, universities and other
| organizations. When only leftists get their voice heard, they
| got used to it. Loosing this privilege looks like
| discrimination, doesn't it?
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| "What is Twitter now is a fair game. Every voice is heard the
| same. What Twitter is doing now should have been the norm the
| whole time."
|
| Where is your proof for that being true? I was a left-leaning
| voice that was banned from Twitter after changing my display
| name (not handle) to "Elon's Musk".
|
| How is that free speech?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| You got banned for impersonation, not speech.
| triceratops wrote:
| > for impersonation
|
| Of a cologne brand of some kind? "Elon's Musk" is very
| clearly not a person.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| "Joe's Rogan" is also not a person, but plenty of bots
| and scammers on social media use such celebrity names to
| obfuscate their accounts and scam people with
| crypto/erection pills, etc. You have to ban all of them
| to eliminate scammers as much as possible.
| triceratops wrote:
| > use such celebrity names to obfuscate their accounts
|
| I thought free speech and sunlight were the best
| disinfectants. By leaving these accounts up and allowing
| other users to point out how they were misleading,
| everyone will learn and be wiser.
| logicchains wrote:
| It's an actual cologne one can buy:
| https://www.joketown.com/smell-rich
| triceratops wrote:
| Never heard of it. Was the banned account flogging its
| own cologne with the same name?
| exe34 wrote:
| Nobody would confuse "Elon's Musk" with Elon Musk.
| LeafItAlone wrote:
| Are you aware you are asking parent to "prove it" to the
| claims you don't agree with, and then make similar claims in
| the opposite direction without "proving it"?
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| People gave Elon a lot of shit over his comments on
| supporting H1B visas and those comments weren't banned or
| deleted. There's your proof.
| aSanchezStern wrote:
| Actually many people on the right believe they _have_
| been censored by Musk because of this:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/technology/elon-musk-
| far-...
| timschmidt wrote:
| I believe he's referring to
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Files
| jiriknesl wrote:
| Easy, Reclaim The Net documents Twitter censorship for
| years. Here, you have dozens of links, pages and pages
| https://reclaimthenet.org/?s=twitter
| apsec112 wrote:
| Based on looking at the "Latest" feed (which shouldn't be
| biased by the algorithm), and on what newly created accounts
| see, right-wing posts on Twitter outnumber left-wing posts
| something like 10:1.
| blactuary wrote:
| Bullshit. Try using the term cisgender on Twitter, regardless
| of context
| vessenes wrote:
| Sorry, can you back this up with some data and specificity?
|
| I understand that you feel Musk is aligned with the far right;
| my question is what exactly is Musk doing with twitter, and
| (other than when people take the piss against him personally)
| how is he removing free speech that is not "far right"?
|
| I'm genuinely interested in the details -- and they are hard to
| come by.
| snotrockets wrote:
| > you feel Musk is aligned with the far right
|
| It's not a feel, it's real (unless you're so far to the right
| yourself, you don't consider the AfD, neo-nazis, TERFs, etc
| etc such)
| ComposedPattern wrote:
| TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) are generally
| left-wing, despite holding a reactionary view on trans
| people. That sort of comes with the territory of being a
| _radical feminist_. If someone is right-wing, or even just
| a centrist liberal feminist, then they 're just an ordinary
| transphobe, not a TERF.
| jadbox wrote:
| While you may be right by academic classification, most
| TERF studies I've seen and most notable TERF accounts on
| X are almost exclusively far right-wing, because it is an
| inherently conservative stance even if the grounding
| starting position is more socially progressive.
| snotrockets wrote:
| TERFs outed themselves as exclusionary. As such, they
| can't be left wing, even if they would like to align with
| it on some other principles. You can't be humanistic only
| towards some humans.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Elevating tweets of folks that pay the troll under the
| bridge, where folks on the left are going to avoid that fee
| (why would someone on the left materially support a right
| wing pundit?) is one very obvious way.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| He tweeted 150x a day in support of Trump leading up to the
| election. Just go look at his timeline.
|
| Edit: lol at this getting downvoted. Some of you free speech
| purists really don't want to hear basic facts. Seriously.
| Just go look at the timeline. 150x a day is not an
| exaggeration. All of it in direct support of Trump, or
| attacking DEI and anything else associated with Democrats.
| lostdog wrote:
| I use Twitter for machine learning research only, but somehow
| that account gets inundated with Maga crap. That's proof
| enough for me.
|
| Sure, that's an anecdote of one instance, but it's so clear.
| And how would you do a proper study? I'm guessing you would
| need Elon's permission.
| mempko wrote:
| Create a new account and find out. If you create a new
| account, without any other information, twitter will
| recommend you follow Musk, Don Jr (President's right wing
| son), and Babylong Bee, a right wing fake news joke site.
|
| Go ahead, do the experiment and come back and tell me what
| you see.
| ziml77 wrote:
| You don't even need a new account. You could have a years
| old account and you'll get notifications about that crap
| even if you have never followed anything even remotely
| similar. That's what made me delete my account. I got
| Musk's tweets in my notifications and noped the fuck out.
| threatofrain wrote:
| Elon suspended PG's account just for lightly alluding that
| another social media platform exists. I'm not sure why you're
| even bringing up the idea of free speech on Twitter. Can you
| imagine Discord suspending your account for lightly alluding
| that Slack exists?
| vessenes wrote:
| I do not call that a censorship of speech decision, it's a
| banning encouraging the competition decision, no? The
| company doesn't want competitors being boosted, so it makes
| and enforces a policy. I presume people discussing the
| Fediverse as a concept are not routinely suspended,
| although I'm too lazy to check.
| threatofrain wrote:
| So you imagine Discord punishing you for talking about
| Slack? Or Google suspending your account for talking
| about TikTok? On the matter of customers talking about
| marketplace alternatives... your instincts say "oh yes,
| let's exclude this from the discussion of free speech?"
| vessenes wrote:
| Nope, I don't imagine this because those companies make
| different promises to their users than X does to its.
| They, none of them, are part of the commons of US
| discourse, embedded in our infrastructure. They'd have to
| be universal or nearly so to even qualify for most
| definitions of the way the word 'censorship' applies
| under the US 1st amendment.
|
| I don't take my business to Twitter, and that's fine. I
| choose to use Discord because, in very small part, I
| guess, of its attitude on content. Google would no doubt
| ban me for some sorts of content, but not most. Again,
| these are business decisions that any of these companies
| can make; some will lose them users (money), some will
| gain, that's all fine with me; they'll (generally) adjust
| to making the most money, e.g. serving the most
| economically large portion of their user base they can
| attract.
|
| Musk's a wild card because he can (mostly) afford to pay
| extra to get a different mix of users than might be
| totally economically optimal, but history shows that most
| significant and impactful companies trend hard toward
| serving their customer base and trying to expand it as
| widely as possible.
|
| Free speech is alive and well in the US; I can publish a
| website with nearly anything I want to say on it, and if
| it's taken down, I am allowed access to Federal courts to
| determine if that takedown was legal. I can email it, I
| can print it on broadsheets and distribute it anywhere I
| want, I can text it out en-masse. I cannot say whatever I
| want on a Disney forum, however, and that, like Twitter
| does not impact the question of whether or not we have
| free speech.
| jadbox wrote:
| Publishing a website is about as good as writing a book
| and dropping it off in an alley trashcan. You may have a
| voice but you won't be given volume or oxygen. X actively
| drops visibility for posts linking to external sites, and
| bot generated blogs are polluting Google so badly that
| you have no luck for organic reach.
|
| Free speech requires public spaces [digital townhalls],
| but any journalist breaking critical news of Musk gets
| muted or banned on X.
| [https://thespectator.com/topic/spectator-story-
| debunking-elo...]. This is why several major global
| journal outlets have taken to just entirely leaving X in
| protest [https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/journalists_
| leaving_x_bl...].
| notahacker wrote:
| That's a great example of the insincerity of the PG
| article. I mean, I can believe there are people that don't
| pay very much attention to Twitter who genuinely believe
| that Elon Musk is the sort of free speech absolutist he
| says he is, but someone who was suspended and then left
| Twitter because a new Elon censorship policy praising Elon
| for not censoring anyone is quite funny.
| vessenes wrote:
| ... Or he is well placed to make an even-handed
| assessment? If your prior is that people generally are
| smart and have agency, it seems like you might not want
| to discard pg's opinion out of hand.
|
| Agreed that Elon doesn't seem to be as much of a free
| speech absolutist as he promised, especially if you hurt
| his feelings, or seem fun to ban.
| notahacker wrote:
| Well if we agree that Elon's regime is pretty ban-happy
| (his own published data agrees too), I don't see how we
| come to the conclusion that a statement praising Elon for
| making Twitter "neutral" and "without censorship" after
| literally seeing his posts censored under Elon policy is
| an "even handed assessment". It's precisely because I
| think PG is smart and has agency that I assume he's
| someone that's aware of obvious benefits to ingratiating
| himself with the new regime rather than oblivious to how
| Elon actually runs the place.
| blactuary wrote:
| I can. Before he owned twitter, if someone called me the
| n-word or other racial slurs, action was taken. Now when that
| happens and I report it, they reply to tell me no rules were
| broken
| vessenes wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear you're called slurs. They seem endemic
| for my kid as well as soon as you move out of ultra
| progressive areas; as a white parent of a black kid, it's
| disheartening and eye opening to find out just how racist
| some families are, and how immensely wide spread it is.
|
| That said, I don't think this qualifies as newly minted
| removal of speech. It is the allowance of speech that was
| formerly removed.
| blactuary wrote:
| He does not allow the use of the word cisgender, in any
| context, for one
| dragonwriter wrote:
| This is so vigorous that the standalone term "cis", is
| frequently targeted for visibility reduction even when
| used outside of the context of gender.
| vessenes wrote:
| Yep, this was mentioned elsewhere in this thread, and
| it's the only example I've heard of. Like I said
| elsewhere, seems performative to me.
| jrflowers wrote:
| If your position is that awareness of Musk's alignment with
| the far right is a matter of _feeling_ rather than well-
| documented fact [1,2,3,4,5,6,7] then no amount of easily-
| accessible and readily-available detail will convince you to
| adjust that position.
|
| As for an example of Elon making Twitter rules around speech
| he doesn't like, here[8] is one that is very public and not
| hard to come by.
|
| 1 https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/02/elon-musk-nazis-kanye-
| twit...
|
| 2 https://www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2024/12/20/el
| o...
|
| 3 https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/08/technology/elon-musk-
| far-...
|
| 4 https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-
| musk-...
|
| 5 https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/23/business/elon-musk-nazi-
| jokes...
|
| 6 https://www.nydailynews.com/2024/05/02/elon-musk-
| reinstates-...
|
| 7 https://www.vice.com/en/article/elon-musk-twitter-nazis-
| whit...
|
| 8 https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-cis-cisgender-slur-
| twitter-185...
| vessenes wrote:
| No, I didn't make any statement on Musk's politics; it
| wasn't the part of the comment that interested me.
|
| To the extent you slightly implied you were interested in
| what I think, he certainly seems trending far-right to me,
| but I think you need to moderate any thoughts on Musk with
| the reminder that he loves the drama, enjoys trolling, and
| has an almost unique freedom (in the west) to say whatever
| he likes online. Combine that with the drugs and his
| current ego trip, and I don't think it's that easy to say
| what he _actually_ thinks, and I certainly don 't think
| it's worth a lot of my time to consider it deeply.
|
| I agree that banning cis while allowing the n-word is a
| concrete example, thank you. Super dumb. Speaking as a
| cishet guy. Also, banning cis seems essentially
| performative for Musk's (target?) audience(s?) -- I note
| that anti-trans rhetoric was one of the major platform
| points for Republicans in this election, so it's not, like,
| risky performativism, just run of the mill performativism.
| jrflowers wrote:
| > I think you need to moderate any thoughts on Musk
|
| The idea that forming an opinion about somebody based on
| what they publicly repeatedly say and do over the course
| of years is somehow the wrong approach with This One Guy
| is an act of unnecessary and unjustified generosity.
| "Loving the drama" is not in any way exclusive to having
| actual opinions, and trolls are not magical beings that
| exist in an inscrutable superposition of possible
| realities that they may or may not support.
|
| It is downright silly when someone's conduct is so clear
| that the only way to defend them is to handwave away
| everything that they say and do and retreat into the
| philosophical ideal of the unknowability of a man's
| heart. That is an academic exercise that's only useful in
| analyzing fictional characters and has negative value
| when applied to real-life powerful people that fund
| politicians and buy social media sites to forcibly mold
| public discussion to fit their values.
| vessenes wrote:
| I'm not defending Mr. Musk at all. I'm saying it's
| pointless to spend more than 0.0001% of my time or
| brainpower thinking about him and his politics -- a
| COMPLETE waste of time exceeded perhaps only by reading
| his Tweets, be they heartfelt or performative or
| trolling. To the extent I'm thinking about Elon, I'm
| thinking about what led to his success, and how those
| lessons might apply to me or people I'm supporting.
| jrflowers wrote:
| Saying "we don't know what he _actually_ thinks" _is_ a
| defense. You only ever see people use that line when it
| comes to his politics, but never say, to question whether
| he actually likes Diablo 4 or AI.
|
| When it comes to things that people find mundane or
| agreeable, the stuff he posts about all day reflects what
| he thinks but when he gives fifty million dollars to
| Stephen Miller[1] in 2022 to fund his Citizens for Sanity
| ads[2], maybe he's trolling or it's drugs or whatever.
|
| > I'm thinking about what led to his success, and how
| those lessons might apply to me or people I'm supporting.
|
| This is quite literally a defense of his character. If
| your response to "this guy sucks, here is proof that this
| guy sucks" is "there is literally nothing bad he could do
| that justifies thinking about anything other than the
| positives about him", that is what defending a person
| looks like.
|
| 1
|
| https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4912754-musk-
| donated-m...
|
| 2
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/11/who-is-behind-
| citize...
| p4bl0 wrote:
| This is by Twitter itself, before Musk: "Our results reveal a
| remarkably consistent trend: In six out of seven countries
| studied, the mainstream political right enjoys higher
| algorithmic amplification than the mainstream political
| left." https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
|
| This is more recent: "We observe a right-leaning bias in
| exposure for new accounts within their default timelines."
| https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.01852
|
| You can also find a lot a testimony from users like: https://
| www.reddit.com/r/behindthebastards/comments/1es2lfd/...
|
| ---
|
| Now from personal experience (I've been on Twitter since 2007
| and used it virtually everyday since then):
|
| I've heard and read a lot of such testimony in particular
| from user who don't post much or at all and only follow a few
| accounts. In the last two years they've been exposed to a lot
| of far right content.
|
| I've seen how the moderation team at twitter took action
| before musk when reporting (often _illegal_ ) hate speech and
| now just respond by saying that it doesn't violates the
| platform rules.
|
| I've seen on the contrary people (even journalists) and
| political or news organization getting locked out of their
| account following a far right online mob against them, and
| then having a hard time (sometimes to the point of giving up)
| getting it back because the moderation team did not act.
| weare138 wrote:
| Just go check out that man's X (twitter?) feed. Elon
| constantly says the quiet part out loud. I'm from genx and if
| you're younger I'm going to give you all some solid life
| advice. When someone tells you who they are, listen.
| hmmm-i-wonder wrote:
| Its interesting how doing something is immediately equated
| with 'removing not far right' free speech.
|
| The idea is he promotes the talking points that benefit the
| right and the Republicans. Both personally and in changing
| the platforms algorithms [1].
|
| There have been reports of people disagreeing with that
| general 'platform' loosing their blue check marks [2],
| accounts being disabled, followers dropped [3] and so on to
| reduce the reach of left/liberal people.
|
| He doesn't need to remove speech he disagrees with, he can
| drown it and amplify the messages he wants to be heard and
| significantly control the narrative and discussion that way.
|
| [1]https://eprints.qut.edu.au/253211/1/A_computational_analys
| is...
|
| [2]https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/social-media/elon-musk-
| accused-...
|
| [3]https://finance.yahoo.com/news/big-twitter-accounts-left-
| los...
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| I was banned from Twitter within hours of Elon having control
| for changing my displayed name (not my handle) to "Elon's Musk"
| in a reply to something unhinged that he had tweeted.
|
| So much free speech.
| MrMcCall wrote:
| The easiest thing for a truly evil person to do is lie. They
| lie about being good, first and foremost. That most people
| are just a bunch of willfully ignorant rubes works very well
| for them, unfortunately.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| So you were banned for the new rules on imitation as opposed
| to free speech
| hmmm-i-wonder wrote:
| That sounds like satire not imitation to me.
| ColdTakes wrote:
| This is clearly not an imitation. Parody if nothing else
| which is protected by fair use.
| qqqult wrote:
| The imitation rule states that it's perfectly fine to run
| parody accounts as long as you clearly state that it's a
| parody. There are a ton of accounts named Elon Musk
| Parody, Biden Parody and similar
|
| Without it every post of a famous person was botted with
| 100 accounts with identical display name, pfp that tried
| to promote scams like with YouTube comments
| ColdTakes wrote:
| The user says they were banned within hours of Elon
| taking over Twitter. New Parody rules did not come into
| affect until November 2022.
| qqqult wrote:
| I replied to your comment about what constitutes
| imitation and why that rule exists. Neither of us have
| any idea about the details of that particular ban
| ColdTakes wrote:
| I know why the rule exist. Getting banned for a rule that
| did not exist at the time is an overreach from a self-
| proclaimed free speech absolutist.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Here's an account that calls itself Michelle Obama (not
| even Michelle's Obama) after the parody rule went into
| effect (unlike Elon's Musk). It doesn't label itself a
| parody. It's still there. https://x.com/TaxpayerEnrique
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| "free speech absolutist"
| 4ndrewl wrote:
| presumably downvoted because a) every time you mention
| 'free speech' to these techbro nutjobs it's clear they
| don't have the first idea what it actually means b)
| insecure snowflakes, every one of them.
| Levitz wrote:
| Free speech is the freedom to communicate ideas and
| opinions. The above censors none.
|
| This is also why spam is not covered under freedom of
| speech.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| How is that imitation?
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| Were you banned for your speech or for being a troll intent
| on being disruptive to the community? Because there's a
| difference.
| ziml77 wrote:
| Shouldn't matter. Musk is a free speech absolutist after
| all.
| echelon wrote:
| In this case, they are one in the same. And if it is a free
| speech forum, then it should have been a protected act.
|
| Free speech means free speech for those you dislike too. It
| also means having a space for those that are disruptive,
| loud, and engaging in trolling. That's what those fire-and-
| brimstone "you're going to hell" preachers are doing at
| universities. (Which isn't all bad - it gives students a
| great opportunity to learn debate and to stand up for what
| they believe in.)
|
| The ACLU has represented the Vietnam War protestors, the
| KKK, neo-Nazis, LGBT activists, Westboro Baptist Church
| members, religious followers of Jerry Falwell, flag
| burners, anti-abortion activists, women's rights activists,
| communist party members, gun rights advocates, anti-Trump
| protestors, BLM protestors, and more. And it's a good thing
| they represented every single one, because erosion of free
| speech for those we don't like will eventually get back to
| us.
| likeabatterycar wrote:
| The most ardent tattletales from pre-Musk Twitter, angry
| that their sandbox has been opened up, have now co-opted
| the free speech argument to act like complete assholes.
| They're not one and the same.
|
| To those I suggest they move on to BlueSky, where the
| preshared blacklists and ability to inform on others they
| despise would be more to their liking.
|
| Alternatively, they could go touch grass.
| jrm4 wrote:
| I wish, but to be Black in America is to witness this sort of
| cluelessness (despite prowess in other areas) ALL THE TIME.
|
| Domain specific knowledge is SO REAL.
|
| (Incidentally, this is roughly why I don't believe we will ever
| have so called "AGI")
| sangnoir wrote:
| Calling this "cluelessness" is being more charitable that
| parent, and on the balance of evidence, mayn not be the
| correct explanation.
|
| If one were sceptical of this synchronized "political
| awakening" in the tech industry, that incidentally is aligned
| to an incoming presidential administration, one might call it
| some sort of gratuitous signaling of virtues. Which is
| hilariously ironic, and shows either a lack of self-
| awareness, or profound levels of shamelessness.
| logicchains wrote:
| Musk recently de-verified or banned a bunch of far-right
| accounts that were posting anti-H1B content. Musk isn't far
| right, he's just looking after his business interests.
| aSanchezStern wrote:
| Well like any political descriptor, "far right" is a
| generalization that applies to several groups. In this case,
| Elon is part of the corporate-techno-authoritarian far right
| that supported trump, while figures like Loomer who were
| posting the anti-H1B content are part of the white-
| nationalist/christian-nationalist far right (that also
| supported trump).
| p4bl0 wrote:
| Musk literally supports the far right in elections all over
| the world. In the past few days he intervened in Germany in
| favor of the far right candidate. See
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-
| dou...
| spinach wrote:
| People who lean left are choosing to leave.
|
| Greg Lukianoff of FIRE, a free speech defender said Musk made
| twitter better for free speech (on balance):
| https://youtu.be/Er1glEAQhAo?si=2aWdSIsbKzjz0nGA&t=2853
| jadbox wrote:
| This feels like another VC/executive "taking a knee" towards
| the new administration, a vivid trend in the last few weeks. I
| feel like pg was particularly more left/right neutral just up
| until this month of inauguration.
| normalaccess wrote:
| It's interesting to see how polarizing views about Musk have
| become. People often overlook the fact that Musk was, and in
| many ways still is, aligned with traditional liberal values.
| He's been a long-time supporter of initiatives like universal
| basic income, environmental sustainability through the green
| movement ect... Yet, the moment he expresses support for ideas
| that deviate from the more extreme edges of left-wing ideology,
| he's vilified and treated as a pariah by those who once
| championed him.
|
| Regarding X, I still see plenty of left-leaning content, but
| the dynamic has undoubtedly shifted. What's changed is that the
| platform no longer artificially amplifies one ideological
| perspective at the expense of others. Previously, algorithms
| seemed to prioritize content aligned with extreme left
| narratives while outright blocking opposing views. That system
| gave the impression of a dominant left-leaning consensus, that
| was entirely artificial.
|
| At the end of the day, it's impossible to remove all bias so
| whatever system maximizes free speech is the best one.
| p4bl0 wrote:
| What are you saying? Musk is literally and openly supporting
| the far right neo-nazi party in Germany these days. See:
| https://www.lemonde.fr/en/europe/article/2025/01/10/musk-
| dou...
|
| Also, it's just not true that " _Previously, algorithms
| seemed to prioritize content aligned with extreme left
| narratives while outright blocking opposing views_ ". It's a
| lie. Twitter's research itself revealed their algorithm
| favored right wing politics even _before_ Musk. And it became
| a lot more true since he took power. See:
| https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2025334119
| normalaccess wrote:
| While at the same time our tax dollars are supporting
| literal Nazis in the Ukraine.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Brigade
| douglee650 wrote:
| Oh man ... stay in your lane. Capitalism. The human condition can
| seem very hopeless, for sure.
| myflash13 wrote:
| The comparison between religious fanaticism and wokeness is
| incomplete. One big difference is that religion can be deeply
| meaningful to an individual without them needing to express their
| beliefs publicly - religion can often be an entirely private
| affair. Many a loud preacher of religion has retired to a private
| life of quiet worship. Wokeness would have no meaning at all as a
| private affair, it's entirely based around shaming others in the
| public discourse. That's why PG's proposed solution of "allowing
| expression of beliefs without enforcement" might work for
| creating religious tolerance, but will not work for combatting
| priggish wokeism. If you don't allow their policing of words,
| there's nothing left to wokeism.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I agree with Sam Kriss, "wokeness" is an etiquette:
| https://samkriss.substack.com/p/wokeness-is-not-a-politics
|
| > They'll tell you that actually, there's no such thing as
| wokeness. It's not an ideology. It's not a belief system. It's
| just basic decency. It's just being a good person.
|
| > They're right. Wokeness is an etiquette. There are no sects
| within wokeness for the same reason that there are no sects on
| whether you should hold a wine glass by the bowl or by the
| stem. It's not really about dogmas or beliefs, in the same way
| that table manners are not the belief that you should only hold
| a fork with your left hand.
| 23B1 wrote:
| > In fact there's an even more ambitious goal: is there a way to
| prevent any similar outbreak of aggressively performative
| moralism in the future -- not just a third outbreak political
| correctness, but the next thing like it?
|
| Yes. It requires the willpower to disengage from the performative
| point scoring of internet discourse. Most good conversation must
| now happen in private for many reasons, much of that has to do
| with the technology PG himself has previously supported.
|
| Presently, you are seeing social media forking into red and blue
| (x and bsky and fb and truth social). This is bonkers. A superior
| format for discussion is a place like HN which is tightly (and
| opaquely) moderated. Another great development is the use of
| 'community notes' which, for all its imperfections, is superior
| to straight censorship.
|
| Ultimately I'd like to see people like PG invest in high quality
| journalism where the mission is a dispassionate reporting of the
| best-available facts, supported where possible with data, and
| presented in such a way as to demonstrate transparency.
| vessenes wrote:
| The journalism point he made hits home, hard. I'm a sunday
| times subscriber, and just added WSJ and Financial Times paper
| edition. I don't really want to add 10 substacks and parse
| through them all. I'd pay a lot, a lot a lot, for a quality
| daily briefer, known in some circles as a newspaper of record.
|
| One that I love, deeply, is the Martha's Vineyard Gazette --
| still printed on broadsheet, and with fantastic journalism --
| it's what regional and local papers used to be. I wish we could
| have something like this in the national format.
| dymk wrote:
| And there I was, reading a comment earlier today about how HN is
| better than the other places because it prefers technical
| articles over "politics".
| NoGravitas wrote:
| If you want technical articles with less politics, try the
| invite-only red site.
| layer8 wrote:
| How do you get an invite?
| tayo42 wrote:
| Why does woke like set people off like this?
|
| Someone should study the anti woke they way these people focus on
| woke so much. I don't get it? If it's truly just words why are so
| bothered by them, let them go for the worthless words they are.
| willguest wrote:
| I think it's related to the perceived centrality of identity in
| the world. I see this as a natural consequence of
| individualism, which itself is championed by both modern
| capitalist and libertarian thinking, to pick two.
|
| As the focus on the individual's happiness, wealth, values
| (etc.) have become more and more ubiquitous, the need to define
| oneself becomes more and more important. As this has matured,
| many systems have build that reinforce it. Representative
| democracy - one person, one vote, and welfare systems that
| address indivudual needs, are positive examples.
|
| With this comes also a much stronger need for protecting these
| identities, and more weight is given to perceived categories,
| whether they are superficial, like skin colour, or structural,
| like religion or class.
|
| So, when people talk about wokeness, they are not only trying
| to define the social contract, but they also aligning with it
| their identity, which gives a kind of existential urgency. The
| idea that we might be wrong about our position carries with it
| a sense of loss of self, which triggers most people.
|
| Just my two cents.
| skepticATX wrote:
| It's interesting to me that a certain type of person is so
| susceptible to buying into this fable of wokeness, especially
| when it pertains to universities. Almost like there is a woke
| mind virus, but it's not infecting the people they think it is.
|
| I attended university in the mid 2010s, so close to peak
| "wokeness", and I never witnessed or heard of anything like what
| pg is describing. In my experience it was totally fine to hold
| just about any political/ethical view as long as you were a
| decent human being to your fellow classmates. There certainly was
| no political correctness police forcing us to assimilate.
| Dig1t wrote:
| Land acknowledgments, hiring quotas based on race, being banned
| from polite conversation for saying "what is a woman" or "all
| lives matter", injecting children with sex hormones, genital
| mutilation of children (gender affirming surgery), stating
| pronouns as a performative act, race swapping characters in
| popular media.
|
| These are all things which provably exist, these are the
| symptoms of a certain worldview.
|
| Continue to deny that this worldview exists, and you will
| continue losing elections.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > "genital mutilation of children (gender affirming surgery)"
|
| In the past 4 years in the USA there have been:
|
| - roughly 14.4 million children born, half of them are boys
| (7.2 million) and 57% of those circumcised. 4.1 million non-
| consenting genital mutilation surgeries on people who didn't
| ask for them, mostly infants.
|
| - 4160 breast removal surgeries in minors under 17.5 years
| old on people who _did_ ask for them, mostly teens.
|
| - 660 phalloplasties in the same group.
|
| We should definitely wonder why Republicans are fine with
| four million non-consensual genital mutilation surgeries
| every year mostly on infants, but against _a thousand times
| smaller_ number of surgeries mostly teens willingly asking
| for them. We should wonder this in the context of Republicans
| pushing back against legislation raising the minimum marriage
| age:
|
| - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/louisiana
| -... - " _If they're both 16 or 15 and having a baby why
| wouldn't we want them to get married?_ " - said
| representative Nancy Landry, a Republican from Lafayette
|
| - " _The West Virginia bill is an outright ban on all
| marriages under 18. When the House advanced it to the Senate
| with a resounding 84 votes in support, just over 12
| Republicans voted against it_ " ; " _" The only thing it's
| going to do is cause harm and trouble in young people's
| lives," Harrison County Delegate Keith Marple, a Republican
| and the lone person to speak against the state bill_" -
| https://www.newsweek.com/republicans-make-case-child-
| marriag...
|
| i.e. Republicans being fine with 15 year olds "making their
| own choices" when it comes to marriage.
|
| > " _stating pronouns as a performative act_ " ; " _Continue
| to deny that this worldview exists, and you will continue
| losing elections._ "
|
| This is the United States where you stand up every day in
| school and performatively pledge allegiance to a _flag_ ,
| yes? Where you stop strangers in the street to "thank them
| for their service"? How are you so annoyed about someone
| putting "he/him" next to their name (but not about them
| putting captain/corporal/major/doctor/reverend next to their
| name), and as a response you vote for a man who admits sexual
| assault, has been convicted of federal crimes, lies about his
| experience, knowledge and credentials, spent $141,000,000 of
| your money playing golf - mostly at his own golf clubs, used
| the presidency to (illegally!) promote Goya products,
| nepotistically sent his own children as official US
| representatives to meetings? A president who performatively
| attends church for photo shoots but doesn't regularly attend
| church for prayer?
|
| It's this kind of behaviour which gives rise to the jokes
| "the Right will eat a shit sandwich if it means the left will
| catch a whiff of their breath" and which makes a mockery of
| the claims that it's all the left's fault; the Right is
| fixated on trivial bullshit, arguing for the right to be able
| to lie and be jerks without being fact checked or facing any
| consequences, without a sense of proportion of different
| events, obsessed with being angry about the left's feelings
| and calling them snowflakes, while choosing who to vote for
| because a film character gets black skin instead of white
| skin.
| spokaneplumb wrote:
| The popular perception, especially in certain circles, is that
| there's been a rash of "cancellations" and extensive banning
| of, especially, outside speakers on college campuses, and also
| to some extent professors, accompanied by large and successful
| movements there to accomplish those outcomes.
|
| In fact, there are so comically few cases of any of that that
| the couple real-ish ones are _always_ cited by those advancing
| that position, plus a handful that really, really aren 't that
| sort of thing at all (always look up the full story, 100% of
| the time they omit context that totally reframes what was
| happening, this phenomenon is more reliable than most things in
| life).
|
| Real data exist on things like speakers' appearances at schools
| being cancelled, and it's most fair to say that the trend there
| is it's gone from "damn near never happens" to "still damn near
| never happens". And it's not because controversial right-wing
| sorts, which we may presume would be the most likely to be
| banned, aren't even trying to speak on campuses when e.g.
| invited by friendly organizations--they are, and frequently do.
|
| The entire phenomenon is extremely close to being imaginary.
| That's why you, actually being there and not just going by
| social media and pop-political-book and talk radio and podcast
| "vibes", didn't see it.
| willguest wrote:
| > Female students might object if someone said something they
| considered sexist, but no one was getting reported for it.
|
| It seems that the defining factor is that there was no actual
| authority attached to the morality of the situation. He is
| essentially saying that life was better when one could get away
| with doing whatever they wanted with no repercussions.
|
| This is such a well-travelled path that I am surprised his
| intellect, nor that of the people that he claims proof-read this
| document, didn't protest before hitting 'publish'.
|
| Here's a question: how can social justice actually be justice
| without enforcement. The US constitution coded this as the 13th
| amendment - is that now a woke document? Is that an example of
| "radicals getting tenure", or is it example of progress?
|
| Articles like this really don't age well. Neither, it seems, does
| the author.
| let_me_post_0 wrote:
| I live in Europe (Germany) and we have no wokeness here. Saying
| something sexist or racist isn't a big deal. Some people will
| think you are an asshole and that's it. Our leftists go to the
| US and come back ranting about how oppressive wokeness is. I'm
| a minority myself and have experienced my fair share of racism.
| But I have no desire to push for somebody to get fired for
| making a racist joke or some such thing. I will just lower my
| opinion of them and move on with my life. I don't want to live
| in a country where a wrong word at the wrong time might mean
| you're fired.
| djur wrote:
| Germany has laws against hate speech! There are opinions you
| can be jailed for in Germany that you couldn't be in the US.
| willguest wrote:
| I think it depends on the word and the context. If the person
| speaking is your boss, there might be situations where
| 'moving on' isn't an option and the words might have wider
| implication in your life.
|
| Germany actually has several laws in place that explicitly
| protect people in the workplace, such as the General Equal
| Treatment Act (2006, with revisions to 2022) which contains
| an explicit treatment of Harrassment, specifically mentioning
| that of a sexual nature.
|
| Going further, in a judgment dated from 06.12.2021, LAG
| Cologne, sexual harrassment was explicitly stated as
| acceptable grounds for extraordinary dismissal. So actually
| you already live in exactly that kind of country.
|
| https://www.heuking.de/en/news-events/newsletter-
| articles/de...
|
| What I think you're trying to say, though, is that you don't
| experience the kind of angry fanatical discourse that seems
| to a big feature of social media and US discourse, where laws
| are being weaponised and used as blunt political instruments,
| with which to do as much damage to society as possible.
|
| In this case, I agree with you and am super grateful I don't
| live there.
| keb_ wrote:
| Wokeness is an intangible boogeyman that right-leaning people
| attach whatever negative perceptions they have to.
|
| Jordan Peterson did a similar thing, attaching Marxism and Post-
| Modernism to "wokeness" in a childish name-calling exercise
| against everyone in academia he disagreed with. He only did so by
| the way after reading a shitty book by Stephen Hicks, an Ayn Rand
| fanatic.
| red019 wrote:
| They are Marxists and will tell you so, where do you think this
| oppressor/oppressed dichotomy comes from?
| torlok wrote:
| Who's "they"? Peterson couldn't name a single person when
| pushed.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| The article missed the biggest opportunity to be curious by
| avoiding the question: What if they're right?
| karaterobot wrote:
| > But by the same token we should not automatically reject
| everything the woke believe... It would be a mistake to discard
| them all just because one didn't share the religion that
| espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a religious zealot
| would do.
|
| To be fair, he does say the above, which is close enough. The
| problem with asking "what if they're right" is that there's no
| single formulation of beliefs shared universally by such large
| and diverse group, so you can't consider whether _they_ are
| right or not, only whether each individual expression is.
| rukuu001 wrote:
| But there's this statement as well:
|
| > Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on
| the scale that the woke believe it to be...
|
| The whole idea of woke (in the non pejorative sense) is that
| you've done the work to perceive the actual problem.
|
| That statement shows that he hasn't, which I think undermines
| the good parts of the essay.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Yeah, that's where he lost me too. I get the impression
| that in his head the firing of a college president is a
| bigger problem than racism.... like bro 24% of the world
| lives in a caste system. I don't know if human kind will
| ever be capable of treating people without preference
| across beauty, age, race, etc.
|
| I'd be curious how he "sizes" the import of these problems
| (priggishness, prejudice) and whether it's just drawn
| directly from personal frustrations of a wealthy white
| billionaire in the most progressive state in the world.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Isn't that Akin to arguing if something should be a 9.8 or
| a 9.5 on a completely arbitrary scale with no shared
| definition.
|
| From what you say, anyone who disagrees about the nature or
| severity of the problem hasn't done the work and is flat
| out wrong.
|
| If so, then the whole idea of wokeness collapses into the
| state of infallible enlightenment where everything one says
| is correct.
| rukuu001 wrote:
| Hi, you're right - we can't understand what the other
| side means without a genuine discussion.
|
| And the polarized ends of woke and anti-woke shouting
| aren't going to achieve that.
|
| So it's important to engage with the (non-shouty) people
| in our lives who we can have those discussions with.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Moreover, I think the topic of discussion is important.
| Arguing about how important an issue is almost always is
| a waste of time and a distraction.
|
| Issues aren't in a que where the most important get done
| first, and there is rarely a master calculation weighing
| them against eachother. When there is, it is called a
| budget, and that come into play _after_ people have
| agreed upon what they would like to do.
|
| We dont have to fix global racical justice before a
| pothole in the street just because the former is more
| important. If you want to talk about racial justice,
| policy proposals are concrete. Should we have job and
| education quotas, should we have race based criminal
| sentencing, how about diversion programs? Now these are
| topics with some meat on the bones.
| spokaneplumb wrote:
| The entire thing is an exercise in complaining about a
| thing that goddamn near everyone agrees is bad, then using
| that to complain about a much larger movement that probably
| aims to address a lot of legitimate issues, in such a way
| that you can always retreat if challenged. There's a memed
| name for this tactic, and it's _extremely_ on display here.
|
| "Well of course by 'the woke' I only meant the ones I'm
| talking about, and since I'm choosing what that means let's
| just say part of the definition includes that they think
| racism is an even bigger problem than it is--whatever
| amount you think it's a problem, they think it's a bigger
| one, so even you think they are wrong! So as you can see I
| wrote precisely and correctly and you're an idiot who can't
| read."
|
| But in fact it's all nonsense. This whole essay is a bunch
| of mealy-mouthed gibbering, because it relies so heavily on
| that kind of thing. It's either saying something boring
| that 99% of people already agree with, or it's expressing
| the more controversial (and dumber) thing that's getting
| everyone here worked up, but accusations of the latter can
| be deflected by claiming it's only doing the former (in
| which case, why bother writing it in the first place...?)
|
| Essays like this are one of the few things LLMs are already
| entirely capable of replacing us for. Bad ones that mostly
| lack actual content, and don't even really need to be right
| because they're constructed such that they can't be wrong.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I sadly suspect we're going to see some risk adverse hiring of
| boring white dudes in all positions of leadership. Regardless of
| competence.
|
| We're already seeing DEI weaponized. Any non white male person in
| charge of an organization that makes a mistake will be labeled a
| "DEI Hire" accurately or not. Organizations will be risk adverse
| and only hire the most boring white dude they can find from
| central casting. Whatever you want to say about diversity
| initiatives this will be a pretty terrible outcome.
| tines wrote:
| > Any non white male person in charge of an organization that
| makes a mistake will be labeled a "DEI Hire" accurately or not.
|
| That sentiment ("any mistake is because they're a DEI hire") is
| obviously wrong. But didn't DEI open itself up for that
| accusation by lending it some truth? It's a fact that black
| doctors have lower GPAs than Asian doctors on average.
|
| I think a lot of people would argue against DEI because it
| takes the easy way out of a real problem. The result we want is
| more black doctors, but the way you should get to that is not
| changing standards that are not inherently racist.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _I think a lot of people would argue against DEI because it
| takes the easy way out of a real problem. The result we want
| is more black doctors, but the way you should get to that is
| not changing standards that are not inherently racist._
|
| The easy (and right) way out was to hire the most competent
| doctors, not the blackest doctors. I don't want more black
| doctors, I want the best doctors, regardless of their skin
| color. If you want more black doctors, you should train
| better black doctors. However, if you're going to do that,
| don't be surprised when white trainees band together to work
| harder too. If it's fair for your side, it's fair for every
| side.
|
| I have no idea why we went backwards from "discrimination
| based on skin color is never okay" to "it's okay if they're
| black" but there's no reason not to simply recognize the
| mistake, fix it, and move on.
| tines wrote:
| > The easy (and right) way out was to hire the most
| competent doctors
|
| What I mean by "easy" is "quick and superficial." Hiring
| the most competent doctors delays achieving the statistic
| of "more black doctors," so it's not the "easy way" I'm
| talking about. It takes time for education to come up to
| par in black communities, because they're poorer for
| historical reasons. The right (and harder, because it's not
| doable via a means that the DEI people directly control---
| hiring) way is to put money where it's needed for
| education, and "more black doctors" will be a ripple effect
| achieved without discrimination.
| mmustapic wrote:
| If you are going to train black doctors, then you need to
| enrol them in universities. If you don't want tu use
| scholarships or quotas, then you must make sure that those
| black candidates actually do good in high school, otherwise
| it's DEI.
|
| If you are giving scholarships or subsidies to black
| teenagers so they can eventually get into a university,
| that's also DEI, so better subsidise their families so they
| can get a better primary education and upbringing... but
| that's also DEI.
|
| So you keep going back and the "solution" is basically to
| do nothing and keep the status quo.
| tines wrote:
| > If you are giving scholarships or subsidies to black
| teenagers so they can eventually get into a university,
| that's also DEI, so better subsidise their families so
| they can get a better primary education and upbringing...
| but that's also DEI.
|
| Looking at this in terms of race is misguided. Don't do
| anything for "black people," just help "poor people" get
| better educations by giving more money to poor schools. A
| lot of "poor" schools are actually black schools, but not
| all, so more than just black people will benefit; and not
| all black people are poor, so we won't waste resources on
| those who already have them.
|
| Defining DEI as "doing anything about the problem" and
| then saying that DEI opponents therefore don't want to do
| anything about the problem is a lazy bait-and-switch that
| I wish we would all recognize and stop doing.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I think there is a deep seated concern that this could
| exacerbate the problem if poor people white people are
| able to take advantage of that help to a greater degree
| than poor black people.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I dont see how doing nothing is the logical conclusion of
| tracing things back to the root cause, or why non-racial
| solutions cant be implemented at any of the levels.
|
| What is wrong with helping poor people get better primary
| education? What is wrong with making university cheaper
| and more accessible?
|
| These types of things should help black people, as well
| as hispanic, asian, or white people that start with a
| disadvantage.
| throwawa14223 wrote:
| Why exactly is that a terrible outcome? What's wrong with
| boring white dudes?
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Nothing. But if people are afraid of NOT hiring boring white
| dudes it becomes not about competence but about avoiding the
| optics of not wanting to look like you're doing a DEI thing
| Bearstrike wrote:
| Things will play out differently in the public and private
| sectors. But if you take Trump's cabinet selections as a
| bellwether then there are people of a variety of races,
| sexes, and backgrounds.
|
| I find it hard to take seriously the notion that anybody
| serious is arguing for "let's go back to all white dudes"
| as a response to DEI. Sure...it's going to happen because
| nepotism and cliques aren't going away. But on the whole,
| it seems people want to move towards competence/merit being
| the only factors in play.
|
| Will it get there? Time will tell, but there will
| invariably be issues. Your execution can be wrong, even if
| your philosophy is right. But if your philosophy is wrong
| (we need x% minority engineers, x% trans engineers, x%
| female engineers), you'd be hard pressed to avoid bad
| implementation.
|
| "We are having a hard time hiring all the people we want.
| It doesn't matter what they look like" John Carmack
| int_19h wrote:
| It doesn't matter what the people want in this case, but
| rather what the public relations look like.
|
| OP posits that any non-white person in a position of
| responsibility is going to be blamed as a "DEI hire" if
| something happens under their watch regardless of their
| actual competence, because that's the kind of headlines
| that drive engagement with a certain audience. And I
| think that's a justified fear - just look at the current
| brouhaha over California fires.
| b800h wrote:
| The whole "pale, male and stale" narrative is antiwhite racism.
| I don't think people should perpetuate it.
| surfingdino wrote:
| LinkedIn has a DEI jobs category in their Jobs section. How is
| that a qualification to do a job?
| lbrito wrote:
| > Any non white male person in charge of an organization that
| makes a mistake will be labeled a "DEI Hire" accurately or not.
|
| This isn't restricted to tech.
|
| "I'm French when I score, Arab when I don't" - Karim Benzema.
| motohagiography wrote:
| even though I agree with much of his commentary, the piece that's
| missing is in the questions: were you principled and brave? how
| were you an example?
|
| I know what I did, and some of it is in my comment history on
| this site. but I think the whole episode was a failure of moral
| courage. sure, it was the woke, but really, it was us. I think
| anyone feeling more free to speak now needs to reflect on that.
| Watching Zuck on Rogan was refreshing and hopeful, but that (very
| Harvard) oblivious affect that blows with the wind is not a
| foundation on which to rebuild the culture.
|
| there's a very compelling take from the woke, which summarizes
| as, "you don't get to say mean and dumb shit without a cost
| anymore, and we're not bearing the costs of your culture that is
| set up to exclude us." This must be heard, and most criticisms of
| the totalitarian moment that seized our culture overlook that
| this argument was the kernel of truth that anchored the system of
| chaos and lies that followed.
|
| to most of them I would respond, "you othered yourselves and when
| adults wouldn't listen to you, you organized to terrorize kids
| about their 'privilege.'" however, for our civilization to
| survive, there is a social re-integration of a lot of people that
| needs to be done so that there is an _us_ again, and a sense of
| our shared protagonism.
|
| I'm glad PG, Andreesen, Zuck, Musk, and others are addressing
| this stuff. Elon's massive gambit and persistent leadership, and
| Zuck hiring Dana White for the Meta board are very good starts.
|
| If you want to be a part of rebuilding after this dark period,
| ask yourself if you had courage when it was hard, and reflect on
| when you didn't so that you don't fail like that again.
| _bee_hive_ wrote:
| I did, and do, and each day I pay the price and then some.
|
| Free speech and research is critical in order for our society
| to thrive. That said, it is not mutually exclusive with helping
| folks that need a little help to integrate and contribute when
| they really want to? It's sad to see changes that helped,
| getting thrown out for its association with a social craze.
| camcaine wrote:
| Funny reading all the outrage comments on here.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| i dont think the ppl expressing their outrage here realize the
| screenshot of their content is being amplified and shared on
| other platforms not because they agree with it but purely for
| comedy.
|
| so steadfast is their view point as the only possible view that
| they cant imagine/realize many of us are laughing _at_ them.
|
| coupled with the discoverability of usernames connected to
| their other real world profiles and the virality of their
| comic, it probably is unwise to be labelled far-left or 'woke'
| in professional circles going forward.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| It's also funny how many of them lack substance or the ability
| to meaningfully engage pg's arguments--and instead resort to
| ad-hominem or reductio ad ridiculem.
|
| A generation of people educated under woke teachers are unable
| to see from a different perspective, or to argue logically and
| dispassionately for an opinion.
| jodrellblank wrote:
| Substanceless empty comment that has likely been copy-posted
| by Mildred under a pro-vaccination video on YouTube, written
| into the newspaper letters page about climate change by Capt.
| Black, and in the tabloid news article comments section about
| immigration.
|
| Do I really have to waste my life pointing out that you are
| making _solely_ an ad-hom comment, while whining about ad-hom
| comments?
|
| "they lack substance"
|
| "they lack the ability"
|
| "educated under woke teachers"
|
| "unable to see"
|
| "unable to argue logically"
|
| ad-hom, ad-hom, fantasy, ad-hom, ad-hom.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| It's not ad-hominem to say a bunch of comments are ad-
| hominem (or if it is, how do you characterize your
| comment?).
|
| I'll concede my second remark was unhelpful, since such
| remarks are best expressed in private with friends (if at
| all). It wasn't intended as an argument or a personal
| attack... more as a lament.
| qoez wrote:
| It's against HN rules to say it used to be better but looking
| at these replies it clearly has changed since the first days
| around a decade ago
| jodrellblank wrote:
| > " _the first days around a decade ago_ "
|
| Your calendar's missing a few years; HN is from Feb 2007:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_News
| TheEggMan wrote:
| For the record, there are some conservatives on YC that agree
| with PG.
| pavlov wrote:
| Would this essay be on the HN frontpage if it was written by
| anyone else?
| paulpauper wrote:
| It would but not for long . politics stuff tends to get flagged
| fast .
| bbzealot wrote:
| Not if they're from PG apparently
| redundantly wrote:
| No. Stuff like this benefits those behind HN and many who
| frequent this site. The political-neutral face HN puts on is a
| farce.
| pavlov wrote:
| Did pg really think through the timing of this essay?
|
| Whether his intention or not, releasing this right now feels
| like it's part of a concerted effort by the SV ultra-rich to
| convince their fans that Trump Is Good Actually.
| diggan wrote:
| > concerted effort by the SV ultra-rich to convince their
| fans that Trump Is Good Actually
|
| If that was his intention, wouldn't he make an article
| calling for the end of wokeness and everything related to
| it? Instead of saying something that can be summed up as
| "There are bad parts of wokeness, and there are some good
| parts"
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| your summary sounds an awful lot like a "good people on
| both sides" variation...
| prewett wrote:
| That's sure a lot better variation than "those Other
| people are just Bad" that seems to be current on both the
| left and the right currently.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| I'd like to think "no", but we've debated a lot of dumb shit
| written by famous-in-some-circles people over the years.
|
| I'd also push back on HN ever having been politically
| neutral. I think 20 years ago it was "politically naive" or
| "politically ignorant", but that's not the same thing.
| 5cott0 wrote:
| >Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports,
| or celebrities, unless they're evidence of some interesting new
| phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal
| pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
| topic.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| minimaxir wrote:
| This is a rare case where the author and their position makes
| the content more important than the content itself.
| causal wrote:
| No. And man, I feel like the quality of PG's essays have
| declined. Even if I agreed with a few points, it was so
| rambling, and just made so many leaps. The sheer length of it
| is a pretty good signal he didn't really work that hard on
| this.
| lbrito wrote:
| No.
| e_y_ wrote:
| Sometimes it's good to know where people stand when they're
| shooting themselves in the foot.
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| ...especially because this class of society is often standing
| on the backs of others!
| themaninthedark wrote:
| There was an essay by Ken Shirriff on the front page earlier,
| discussing political stuff but leaning in the opposite
| direction. It, at time of writing has 271pts vs this with
| 218pts.
| llm_nerd wrote:
| We just had a day-long front page about why we need to feel
| shameful about using the term "Cargo Cult" because some tribe
| that positively no one is thinking about when they use the
| phrase believed a God would deliver cargo if they setup fake
| radio towers and used bamboo headsets. Some sort of hand wavy
| "why I am better than all of these fools who don't understand
| the real details" bit of noise. Colonialism or something. White
| guilt.
|
| When I saw this PG article I wondered if that article inspired
| it. It is the perfect example of someone walking into something
| where zero people have ill intentions, and _everyone_
| understands exactly what that very useful term means, and
| telling us all we should stop using it because of their moral
| eye opening. Aren 't we all better people now?
| tester756 wrote:
| It was already flagged like 8h ago
| tantalor wrote:
| If anything, this is a useful looking glass into the minds of
| people who love to complain about language policing and think
| "censorship" is our biggest social problem.
| grahamj wrote:
| I love that complaining about language policing is language
| policing
| layer8 wrote:
| It isn't, though.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| In the same way that the police upholding the law is
| vigilantism?
| gitaarik wrote:
| Well, with the recent news that Facebook censored vaccine side
| effects by order of the government, I think we shouldn't
| underestimate censorship.
| ColdTakes wrote:
| "News"
|
| I'm not saying this didn't happen but I wouldn't trust Mark
| Zuckerberg if he said the sky was blue. He is trying to curry
| favor with the new administration and he is not above lying
| or embellishing what really happened.
| gitaarik wrote:
| Ok, so they're making that up according to you? Wouldn't
| they be investigated and if it turns out to be BS they
| would get an enormous fine? The Biden administration can
| easily sue them, why wouldn't they do that? Maybe because
| they know it's true, and they don't want to draw more
| attention to it, and they don't want an investigation?
| gitaarik wrote:
| And there are clearly side effects [1], and it was
| already clear before this news that this was being
| censored. We just have confirmation from the CEO of
| Facebook now.
|
| [1]: https://dailysceptic.org/2024/12/11/revealed-the-
| full-hidden...
| ColdTakes wrote:
| 1. The Biden admin is already suing them for a different
| reason.
|
| 2. The Biden admin won't be there to sue them in 7 days.
|
| 3. I'm not saying this didn't happen, I'm saying
| Zuckerberg is a habitual liar and I wouldn't believe him
| if he said his name was Mark.
| gitaarik wrote:
| 3: Fair enough, but you also have to consider what is
| wise for him to say and not. You can't just make any shit
| up and get away with it. He might say certain things and
| certain other things not to aid his agenda, but I don't
| think he just makes this stuff up.
| ColdTakes wrote:
| > You can't just make any shit up and get away with it.
|
| Trump and Elon Musk literally just make any shit up and
| get away with it.
| tantalor wrote:
| FB was _not_ ordered to do this. In their words:
|
| _it was our decision whether or not to take content down,
| and we own our decisions, including COVID-19-related changes
| we made to our enforcement... we made some choices that, with
| the benefit of hindsight and new information, we wouldn 't
| make today_
|
| - Mark Zuckerberg, 26 August 2024
| somekyle2 wrote:
| If you're very rich, not left leaning, and have a big platform,
| I imagine it's very easy for censorship/woke mobs to seem like
| the biggest problem. Most of your needs/wants (in terms of
| food, shelter, safety) are met, you can mostly do what you
| want, but people online call you names and some of your posts
| might get taken down. It's one of the only problems you can
| feel, and it's obviously because the culture is wrong, because
| you feel it's empirically established that you are smart and
| good.
|
| It's a little like people whose exclusive concern in the realm
| of sexual assault is false accusations; if you can't imagine
| being a victim or a perpetrator, false accusation is the only
| part you think can affect you, so naturally your priority is
| minimizing that risk. Skews your perspective a bit.
| i_love_retros wrote:
| It's political correctness gone mad!
|
| https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2xpsg9
| jhp123 wrote:
| if you're going to talk about history, it really helps to ground
| your narrative in real people, events, or statements. This all
| comes off as a history of vibes, and I don't remember the same
| vibes at all (maybe because I wasn't on twitter).
|
| When pg does make contact with reality, it mostly doesn't even
| support his narrative. He mentions the George Floyd protests and
| the MeToo movement/Weinstein - by any measure real social justice
| issues where the perpetrators deserved condemnation!
|
| He also mentions the Bud Light boycotts as a case of going "too
| woke", but Bud Light's actions were not an "aggressive
| performative focus on social justice." Bud Light simply paid a
| trans person to promote their product, without any political
| messaging whatsoever. It was the boycott by anti-trans bigots
| that politicized that incident.
| vessenes wrote:
| Also not on twitter, other than to camp my name. I disagree
| with your reading of the essay - he says that both of those
| were sort of "peaks" for their respective movements, and I
| would say that feels accurate to me. I'm in a mixed-race
| family, and George Floyd was the first and so-far only period
| where our family needed additional support, talk, help,
| considering how to respond.
|
| I agree that Anheuser-Busch seemed to have been stunlocked by
| Dylan Mulvaney v. Kid Rock on the internet.
| jhp123 wrote:
| I didn't mean to imply that pg was saying that these
| incidents were unjustified or performative. I just think it's
| telling that the actual real-world events he discusses are
| not examples of the supposed overwhelming trend he's trying
| to diagnose.
|
| I think if he tried to actually discuss the main events of
| cancel culture, it would give the game away, because it would
| be a lot of penny-ante whining about minor setbacks in
| people's professional lives. Like, who is the most prominent
| example of an unjustly cancelled person? Larry Summers, who
| had to leave his job at Harvard almost 20 years ago, and
| later served a prominent role in the Obama administration?
| I'm inclined to take Summers' side in the controversy, but if
| that is a historically significant injustice in your
| worldview then you might be suffering an advanced case of
| brainrot.
| vessenes wrote:
| I'm in general agreement with you. And <<-- I think he's
| right to complain about US Universities on this. There was
| a period quite recently where literal invitations to self-
| criticism were required at some of the US' top schools. I
| cannot believe this increased the diversity of opinion and
| thought at those schools. To me, Summers is a stand-in for
| a lot of academics in the essay, and most interesting
| because he was a powerful person who was not as powerful as
| the social movement of the time.
|
| Anyway, as you say, Mr. Summers will be fine.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > He also mentions the Bud Light boycotts as a case of going
| "too woke", but Bud Light's actions were not an "aggressive
| performative focus on social justice." Bud Light simply paid a
| trans person to promote their product, without any political
| messaging whatsoever. It was the boycott by anti-trans bigots
| that politicized that incident.
|
| This is a double standard. For example, Contrapoints was
| cancelled for using Buck Angel to do a 10 second voice over in
| one video[1]. A far less politically charged association with
| someone than what Bud Light did. In this regard, I think the
| left has been the ones who primarily set the rules of
| engagement for the last few years. Can't complain when those
| same rules are used against you.
|
| [1] https://medium.com/@rachel.orourke_88152/the-10-second-
| voice...
| tome wrote:
| > Bud Light simply paid a trans person to promote their
| product, without any political messaging whatsoever
|
| Isn't it one of the tenets of wokeness that "nothing is
| apolitical"?
| tantalor wrote:
| This is the wokest essay I've ever read.
| vessenes wrote:
| I like the idea that you could think of the essay as part of
| the newly performative "not-hard-left" messaging. I guess maybe
| it is a product of its very recent times. It seems to me like
| there's a bit of social and cultural space for people to "speak
| up" that haven't felt like they can for some time. To my mind,
| that's all to the good, it leaves room for discussion and
| debate which is healthy.
| excerionsforte wrote:
| The problem with words like "woke" is that there is no agreement
| on what it means. One sides it means this another says it means
| that. I think whatever it means to you shows truly what you
| believe. I don't use this word because it means nothing to me and
| I use more specific words to better communicate.
|
| "Cancel Culture" has agreement on what it is, but one side says
| only the other side does it while doing it themselves. Give me a
| break. I just don't care enough about this.
|
| Feminism, Privilege, gaslighting, toxic, DEI, etc. These words
| are perverted to mean whatever people want it to mean these days.
| Sometimes there is agreement other times there are not. DEI means
| inclusion spaces to one and exclusion/racism/sexism/ageism to
| another.
|
| To address one part of the article about moral purity, again give
| me a break. We all have our compasses and will typically react
| with disgust to those who don't follow. Some people share some
| vague sense of moral compasses. You see it everywhere, not just
| politics. The spreading of outrage via the mainstream via
| internet and media outlets is really what has changed.
|
| America, in its history, has had mobs that would be "woke" in
| today's culture apparently. Social media mobs are nothing
| fundamentally different.
|
| Also, Twitter under Elon did censor people and ban words causing
| them to move to Mastodon and Threads before Bluesky, so let's not
| whitewash the suppression of "free speech" under him by saying
| that all he did was give more visibility to paying members when
| in fact it's what they settled on.
|
| If PG actually wants better examples of moral purity and pushback
| against it, he can get in touch. Some of these examples are just
| not it.
| coltonv wrote:
| It's worth noting that the title of this article was either
| directly ripped or just happens to be near identical to that of a
| book by a known white supremacist Richard Hanania (also a part
| author of Project 2025) who's core argument is that the civil
| rights acts of the 1960s need to be repealed in part or in full.
| diggan wrote:
| Could you share the parts that have been "ripped" or
| "identical" from this book you're talking about? Would be very
| interesting if true, otherwise kind of despicable to make those
| claims without any sort of proof whatsoever.
| ColdTakes wrote:
| The title.
|
| >It's worth noting that the title of this article
| TinkersW wrote:
| It is also similiar to "On The Origin of Species" a far more
| famous book that I'm sure everyone has heard of.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| Do you have specific excerpts from the book to push your claim
| that Paul Graham's writing identifies as a white supremacist?
|
| Not sure why you are mentioning Project 2025 or the civil
| rights stuff, you lost us there.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| Hanania's book is called "The Origins of Woke" and
| specifically calls for massive changes to Title 7 and
| jurisprudence surrounding it. Hanania has a record of
| contributing to explicitly white supremacist web sites.
| Though they claim to have softened their beliefs, they
| continue to cite other contributors to these sites.
|
| It is possible that PG is not aware of Hanania's book. But I
| think the connection is worth interrogating.
| mecsred wrote:
| It's also with nothing that this article's title was either
| directly ripped from or just so happens to be identical to a
| YouTube video about the "party ball" in the video game super
| smash Bros[1].
|
| There's lots of good criticism of the actual article to expand
| on here, calling someone a white supremacist because they used
| an incredibly common title format does not add to that.
|
| [1]https://youtu.be/lSaNV-83mAQ?si=xAE75fWHcqG17Lfm
| infecto wrote:
| These fringe conspiracies on the left are just as troubling as
| the same ones on the right. Sure it's possible but highly
| unlikely that this was an intentional use of that book. I would
| guess for more likely he has no idea about this book like
| myself.
| ralfd wrote:
| Hanania mellowed (matured? Sold out?) immensely in the last 10
| years. If you are a white supremacist wanting to read him
| because of coltonv recommendation, be prepared to be
| disappointed:
|
| https://x.com/RichardHanania/status/1878829377338966310
|
| > One way to understand conservative/liberal differences is to
| think of conservatives as the people who are intellectually
| limited and lazy.
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/08/richard-hanania-raci...
|
| > "I truly sucked back then," Hanania admits, confirming that,
| between 2008 and 2012, he posted pseudonymously on several
| white-supremacist and misogynistic websites [...] He confesses
| he "had few friends or romantic successes and no real career
| prospects" at the time and was projecting his "personal
| unhappiness onto the rest of the world."
| UncleMeat wrote:
| He has denounced his past beliefs.
|
| He still cites people who contribute to these websites that
| he describes as "white-supremacist and misogynistic", though.
| That seems awfully odd for somebody who claims that these
| beliefs are odious. I also really don't know how else to
| interpret a call to overturn Griggs v Duke.
| dang wrote:
| "either directly ripped or just happens to be near identical"
| is a pretty wide disjunction--it includes every possible case!
| justinhj wrote:
| You are not trying hard enough. Sure, you managed to allude to
| Paul Graham being a white supremacist just for using a similar
| title. How many ways are there to phrase a title for an essay
| about this topic? But really my disappointment comes from you
| not being able to leap to calling him Hitler. Surely someone
| else in the comments will manage it anyway. 7/10
| NoGravitas wrote:
| I flipped the Bozo Bit on Paul Graham a long time ago. But if I
| hadn't then, I would now. I simply do not care to know what yet
| another tech industry financier thinks about "wokeness". Or,
| indeed, whatever anyone involved with startup culture thinks they
| know about history, culture, or philosophy of any sort - it's
| always just a distillation of their class interest dressed up to
| look profound to people who tried hard to avoid classes in the
| arts and sciences.
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| Are there viable alternatives to HN? I'm pretty sick of PG and
| Altman's influence.
|
| They aren't good people.
| pkkkzip wrote:
| Reddit? Not sure why you decided today is the day to move
| 650REDHAIR wrote:
| Really? In a thread discussing PG's most recent brain fart
| you can't understand why today would be the day?
| bowsamic wrote:
| Probably because of the blog post that it is a comment to
| dowager_dan99 wrote:
| lots of things reach a breaking point: dams, pollution
| assimilation, BS jobs, social media sites...
| sedatk wrote:
| I stopped using Reddit after the 3rd party app massacre. I
| don't even do it out of protest, it's just I don't feel like
| it anymore. I guess that's how powerful habits are.
| coliveira wrote:
| 100% agree. They've become a symbol of how money corrupts
| people.
| diggan wrote:
| > They've become a symbol of how money corrupts people
|
| _Become_? I 've read at least one of pg's books, and
| probably 10s of the essays, and even when I first read it
| (probably close to 2012 sometime) it was evidentially clear
| he is mostly about money. If the job (VC) didn't make it
| clear, the essays makes it even clearer.
|
| In short, most people involved in the VC/startup ecosystem
| are mostly about money. They will say they care about other
| things too, but they mostly say that because they care about
| money. If there is no way to make money saying/doing a thing,
| then they won't do that thing.
| Conlectus wrote:
| Lobste.rs
| sedatk wrote:
| People suggesting lobster.rs as an alternative are the Marie
| Antoinettes of 21st century.
| minimaxir wrote:
| PG and Altman don't have editorial influence on Hacker News,
| and current moderation policy is to not kill topics partaining
| to YC. (which is why I suspect this blogpost got rescued from
| being flagkilled)
| diggan wrote:
| Lobsters probably comes closest. But still invite-only (AFAIK)
| and you also don't bump into random programming superstars (who
| programmed that one childhood game you absolutely loved) there
| every now and then.
|
| Besides, I feel like HN is dang's kingdom, and compared to how
| it used to be, pg is barely mentioned nowadays. Based on
| feelings only, it doesn't feel like HN skews pg/altman
| friendly, I'd probably say it's the opposite if I had to say
| anything.
| graypegg wrote:
| Ycombinator is of course, involved to some extent with the
| creation of HN. So I get it. Tech leaders cultism sort of
| infests the space.
|
| But I do tend to find HN pretty broad in topics. I do think
| they end up on here because they're good at making news for
| themselves (not a compliment) and the sort of people posting on
| here, are posting tech news. I don't see ending up on HN's
| front page as any indicator of goodness, but more so, it's at
| least something people are talking about and sparks some
| discussion, goodness-neutral on the specific topic at hand.
|
| dang is really good at his job!
|
| That said, I really like mastodon! Obviously it's a different
| sort of platform, but you can get a similar but less-tech-
| thought-leader-centric experience with some light curation.
| (And participation by yourself!)
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Same but also with Dang.
| ziml77 wrote:
| What influence of theirs are you seeing on HN?
| fidotron wrote:
| The defining work on this subject is "Industrial Society and its
| Future" by Ted Kaczynski. Where he says "leftism" say "woke" and
| you have it.
|
| This always needs to be followed by a condemnation of his violent
| methods, but that has been used as a way to avoid dealing with
| his horribly on point diagnosis of the problem.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Society_and_Its_F...
| justinrstout wrote:
| This article never takes up the cause of the minorities who are
| being harassed and killed on a daily basis, but spends a lot of
| time whining about having to show even a modicum of empathy by
| using more inclusive language. For this reason it reeks of self-
| centered willful ignorance.
| logicchains wrote:
| In the US statistically speaking a minority is much more likely
| to be killed by another minority than a "white" American.
| mindslight wrote:
| Except the state is doing its killing as normative behavior
| in all of our names, whereas disorganized gang violence is
| already generally seen as wrong.
|
| And yes, police unaccountability most certainly affects more
| than just minorities. The lawlessness of law enforcement is
| actually _the most pressing_ second amendment issue of our
| time, but you wouldn 't know it by listening to the fully-
| pwnt political hacks at the NRA, pushing their chosen "side"
| of the group-herding thought-terminating "woke" strawman like
| pg here (sigh). How can you claim to have a second amendment
| right to self defense when the police can summarily execute
| you for exercising that natural right, in your own home, at
| night? (The answer is that you can't)
| fatbird wrote:
| Statistically true. What's your point?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Sure, for the same reasons 84% of white people are killed by
| white perpetrators, and most child abusers are family members
| of the victim. Closeness brings both opportunity and
| conflict, and things like redlining and white flight have
| ensured the white and black population are quite well
| segregated.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| Most people are killed by someone they know. Due to redlining
| many minorities live in communities that are, to this day,
| essentially segregated. Add the disproportionate correlation
| of violence and poverty, adn you get a volatile cocktail.
|
| You will find it that cities with less redlining have less
| srong correlation between races of victims and perpetrators
| than cities that are more strongly, or more recently,
| redlined.
| 012673 wrote:
| Great fact!
|
| I wonder... why is that? Is it simply because they are non-
| white? What do you think is making your fact a fact?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| If you look how many white people are killed by blacks versus
| blacks killed by white people, you will have a shock. Even when
| you account for whites being a few times more than blacks in
| the general population.
|
| I really don't buy this "minorities" are being killed story.
| omikun wrote:
| This is how to lie with statistics. Two things can be true
| without contradiction. Does a black gang member randomly
| killing an innocent white person cancel a white cop randomly
| killing an innocent black man?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| The original comment made it sound like minorities are just
| hunted down by random whites, lynching style.
|
| But even if you look at police murders on civilians, they
| are killing more whites than blacks. You might argue that
| whites are 5x more than blacks, but police has more
| interaction with blacks than with whites.
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/585152/people-shot-to-
| de...
| apsec112 wrote:
| "Inclusive language" won't stop anyone from being killed or
| harassed, especially with Trump in power in the US again.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Can you point to an increase in minority vs majority deaths
| while Trump was in office last time?
| strathmeyer wrote:
| Their problem with "political correctness" is that someone
| corrected them who them deem lesser than them.
| mullingitover wrote:
| I feel like it's important to enter this part of the cycle
| where the absolute worst people feel comfortable entering their
| most heinous takes into the permanent internet record under the
| delusion that the social pressure to be a good person has been
| defeated forever.
|
| This is effectively putting the popcorn into the popper, but it
| won't be served until about ten years from now.
| apsec112 wrote:
| Trump won the popular vote; it's very hard, over the long
| term, to have strong social pressure from a minority over the
| majority.
| mullingitover wrote:
| The quote doesn't go "The arc of history is short and goes
| straight toward justice. Absolute downhill battle, frankly
| embarrassingly easy."
| lesuorac wrote:
| That's the point.
|
| Spending time teaching people to use people of color instead of
| black is just performant. Actually firing a recruiter that
| immediately throws any black resume into the trash is real
| change.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| "People of color" is a broader term than "black people", and
| is meant to replace the (pretty widely accepted as) offensive
| "colored people", not "black people". I feel like it's useful
| to have a non-offensive phrase that means "nonwhites" without
| being defined in terms of white people, but maybe I'm just
| too woke to reason effectively -\\_(tsu)_/-
| bpt3 wrote:
| Maybe if you make us all run on the euphemism treadmill a
| little faster, we'll get to our desired destination!
| layer8 wrote:
| > phrase that means "nonwhites" without being defined in
| terms of white people
|
| That does sound quite oxymoronic. (I'm not American.)
| andrewstuart2 wrote:
| How exactly would you go about implementing the "real change"
| here?
| bpt3 wrote:
| That's part of the problem, there is no silver bullet. I
| implement it by not being racist (or sexist or any other
| -ist) personally and refusing to support anyone who is.
|
| That's largely all anyone can do (and I have a lot more
| ability to do something about it as a business owner than
| the average progressive), which I'm sure feels inadequate
| and leads to roving bands of thought police members looking
| for perceived transgressions to attack.
| theossuary wrote:
| And how do you decide whether someone you're considering
| supporting is or isn't racist? Do you, by chance, use the
| way they talk about black people or other minorities (man
| that's a mouthful, maybe just shorten it to BIPOC) as a
| way to gauge it?
|
| For example, if someone said the N word in front of you,
| or made an uncomfortable joke about a Mexican, would you
| decide not to support them? If so, then does that make
| you one of those roving thought police? You'd obviously
| be censoring free speech if you decided how you treat
| them based on what they say!
|
| On the other hand, people are clever, they know not to be
| too obvious or it may cause them social issues. So, as
| long as they don't do something too untoward right in
| front of you, does that mean they gain your full support?
|
| Of course, I won't be surprised if those proponents of
| free speech decide to censor me by downvoting instead of
| engaging speech with speech
| wormlord wrote:
| > That's largely all anyone can do
|
| When you don't have an understanding of racism as a
| systemic issue, this ends up being the conclusion. Which
| is why "woke" people (the ones who aren't just adopting
| the aesthetics and being annoying) typically discuss
| social issues in systemic terms (prison, policing,
| discrimination, etc). Which requires not just individual
| actions but collective action.
|
| The inability to understand this concept is really just a
| lack of imagination that comes from internalizing the
| status quo for too long. Not to the fault of anyone, it's
| only natural. But I think this is why "woke" looks like a
| bunch of nonsense from the outside.
|
| For example: the US has 2M people in prison more than any
| other country. An insane number, but to live in the US is
| to accept that number as normal.
| chaps wrote:
| What term would you use to encompass non-white folk?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Why are you trying to divide people based on immutable
| characteristics anyhow?
| iooi wrote:
| Person of color is not for "non-white", see: east asians.
| chaps wrote:
| The question stands, then! What's your answer?
| joejohnson wrote:
| From the article:
|
| >>Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on
| the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one.
|
| pg, and many anti-woke crusaders, employ examples of
| performative anti-racism to undermine the necessity of
| genuine anti-racism altogether.
| Hongwei wrote:
| Is it the critics of performative anti-racism or the actual
| performers of performative anti-racism who are undermining
| anti-racism?
| mindslight wrote:
| Do people that love Chipotle actually hate burritos? It's
| Sturgeon's law all the way down.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| This seems illustrative of the "boogeyman" points that many
| commenters are making. I think it is a very small number of
| people who don't want people to call black people "black",
| and that the majority of liberal people would find the notion
| "you can't call them black people" to be ridiculous.
|
| Are there people who believe this? I'm sure there are, but I
| think they are a vocal minority.
| diggan wrote:
| > But by the same token we should not automatically reject
| everything the woke believe. I'm not a Christian, but I can see
| that many Christian principles are good ones. It would be a
| mistake to discard them all just because one didn't share the
| religion that espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a
| religious zealot would do.
|
| It seems like pg sees good parts with "wokeness", and also bad
| parts. He want to continue with the good parts, while getting
| rid of the bad parts. The essay mostly seems to speak about the
| historical context, and how to work with "wokeness" so the good
| parts can persist, rather than "whining about having to show
| empathy".
|
| Lots of comments here would do good by trying to address
| specific parts of the essay they deem worse, as currently there
| seems to be a lot of handwavey-arguments based solely on the
| title alone.
| Arkhaine_kupo wrote:
| > do good by trying to address specific parts of the essay
|
| I mean its a pretty big train wreck from the start to the end
| but I will try to point some of the dumbest lines, and pg is
| a smart guy so this is a particularly weird miss by him.
|
| >> Wokeness is a second, more aggressive wave of political
| correctness
|
| This is simply not true. Stay Woke is a phrase that has a
| long history and it mostly related to paying attention to
| political issues not correctness. The hashtag where it became
| mainstream was around the shooting of an african american man
| by the police. It wasn't cancelling someone for saying
| something dumb, it was because police brutality has a never
| ending history in the states.
|
| One of the first issues it was used on was freeing P*ssy Riot
| an anti goverment band from Russia, again not a political
| correctness instance but one of censorship and violence.
|
| >> Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one.
|
| He admits he uses the word pejoritively but does not examine
| why a word that begins in a marginalised community is now
| mostly an insult. Like that is beyond irresponsible. if you
| and your gf have a petname and I start using it as an insult,
| and I control the media and the word becomes a common word to
| mean dumbass and I analyse it as that, then I am 1) siding
| with the bully 2) being a shit reporter.
|
| >> Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem
| on the scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine
| one.
|
| This is just stupid because "the woke" is not a real group of
| people, he even admits he uses it as an insult, and secondly
| because he has no reason to know at what scale it is a
| problem. Handwaving a problem that doesn't affect you is
| bonkers, like I'd walk in an oncology ward and say "the scale
| that cancer is killing you is exagerated, but its a real
| problem". Paul Graham is a 60 year old white dude who went to
| Harvard, a uni that invented Essays to admit more white kids
| instead of jews, sport scholarships to put more white kids
| than asians thorugh and that was caught admitting white kids
| with worse grades than asians and was sued for it. He
| benefits from racism in the instituion he went to, spends his
| life in a subject that has 0 to do with policy, politics or
| race and then starts a paragraph with "racism isnt so bad
| yall".
|
| >> The reason the student protests of the 1960s didn't lead
| to political correctness was precisely that
|
| They led to the crumbling of the vietnam war, the
| desmitification of the american military and the end of
| racial segregation. I know he was a kid when it all happened
| but the 60s movements can hardly be called failed political
| projects.
|
| I could go on because its all equally unbased and plainfully
| dumb. But I think just pointing out the kind of basic
| mistakes he has in terms of how he treats the subject means
| you can easily spot other equally dumb conclusions or
| assertions.
|
| Another dumb conclusion, specially coming from someone with a
| background in computer science is
|
| >> Being outraged is not a pleasant feeling. You wouldn't
| expect people to seek it out. But they do.
|
| We KNOW that anger is the most potent emotion in the brain,
| therefore social media algorithms favour it. AI feeds based
| on "engagement" feed people anger, people dont seek it out.
| Shareholders and people like Paul Graham who think humanities
| are stupid do by creating machines that interact with humans
| in ways that are completely unethical.
| xmprt wrote:
| Actually I think that's exactly the problem with "wokeness"
| today. People care so much about minorities that we've come to
| a point where people will be extremely quick to cancel someone
| online who says something wrong but the same people turn a
| blind eye to the actual injustices that happen in the world
| like homelessness and hunger. It's easier to ban someone who
| says something ignorant than it is to go out and advocate for
| building new homes or deciding to stop buying on Amazon and
| Temu to curb the capitalism that people seem to hate so much.
|
| Change needs to happen and I think the "woke" are at least
| working in the right direction compared to a lot of the right
| (who seem to be moving back a lot of progress that's been made
| in the last 50 years) even if their actions are woefully
| inadequate.
| UltraSane wrote:
| > This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely
| used in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the
| dominant one. What does it mean now? I've often been asked to
| define both wokeness and political correctness by people who
| think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the
| same definition: An aggressively performative
| focus on social justice.
|
| In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice.
| And that's the real problem -- the performativeness, not the
| social justice.
| jordigh wrote:
| It bothers me so much that Paul Graham people thinks it's
| _performative_. He can 't imagine anyone actually, sincerely
| holding those beliefs, because he doesn't hold them himself.
| If someone is trying to modify their beliefs and then their
| behaviour, say, by mild self-censorship, he's got a list of
| insults ready for that person trying to better themselves:
| prig, politically correct, woke.
|
| It's not performative. We really do believe that there are
| injustices and that if we can begin by changing the language,
| we can change the behaviour.
|
| Just because Paul Graham can't imagine himself sincerely
| believing in self improvement followed by social improvement
| doesn't mean we don't believe it in ourselves.
| UltraSane wrote:
| You can hold the beliefs without being "performative"
|
| A perfect example is when gay marriage was illegal and some
| straight people loudly announced that they wouldn't get
| married until gay people could.
|
| OK. Your motives are good but how exactly is this going to
| help legalize gay marriage? And why did the world need to
| know about it?
| bpt3 wrote:
| While your example is interesting, I would at least give
| those people some credit for taking the action they could
| (even if it is largely pointless as you said).
|
| I think a better analogy is people who would criticize
| other heterosexual couples for getting married when
| homosexual couples could not, as it is both pointless and
| needlessly antagonistic.
| UltraSane wrote:
| Except the goal of this kind of behavior is not actual
| change but proving to the world you are "morally
| superior" by your chosen system of morality.
| moskie wrote:
| Would you say the same about people joining picket lines
| and marches? Any sort of peaceful protest?
|
| Also, you're projecting. You don't (and can't) know what
| a person's true goals are. Framing these actions as them
| communicating they are morally superior to someone (you?)
| is a thought in that other person's head, not the
| protestors. Maybe these straight people truly believe
| this form of protest (not getting married) will bring
| attention to a cause and maybe change some people's
| minds. Did it? Who knows. But good on them for at least
| trying.
| bpt3 wrote:
| You don't understand the difference between attempting to
| improve yourself and aggressively applying your definitions
| of words and morally acceptable behavior to others without
| any serious thought.
|
| Beginning by changing the language is so fundamentally
| flawed that I have a hard time believing you seriously
| think it could ever be effective.
| layer8 wrote:
| Charitably, PG refers to the policing part as performative.
| He's probably fine with what you describe as sincere self-
| improvement, but not when people start wanting to police
| everyone else.
| anal_reactor wrote:
| I think that inclusive language became a symbol of a step too
| far. If you expect me to adjust some governmental policies to
| make a better society that's fine, but if you expect me to
| change the way I express myself because you personally don't
| like it and you have a bunch of bullies behind you, that's just
| not okay and should be fought against.
| soheil wrote:
| Who's being killed on a daily basis? Could you provide sources?
| dusted wrote:
| Currently, Ukrainans are.
|
| But I suppose the color of their skin means they don't count
| towards the particular argument that dude is trying to make.
| Not calling him racist of course. I'm not even suggesting it.
|
| [update] Hey! Look! I was down-voted for mentioning that
| white people are being killed on a daily basis, what an
| absolute surprise :D
| skrebbel wrote:
| You might've been downvoted for bad style, irrespective of
| your actual argument.
| gedy wrote:
| People in Chicago?
|
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/01/03/chicago-
| homicides-...
| soheil wrote:
| > but spends a lot of time whining about having to show
| even a modicum of empathy by using more inclusive language
|
| Inclusive language can prevent homicide? I'm so lost, what
| does that have to do with cold-blood murder?
| vile_wretch wrote:
| No one is saying that
| wrycoder wrote:
| Yeah, and who is doing the killing?
| kkukshtel wrote:
| Institutionalized racism, sexism, and the general idea that
| some lives matter less than others kills people every day
| through healthcare claim denials, red-lined neighborhood
| districts with lack of infra for safe access to
| food/water/health/civil services, etc. If you want explicit
| violence, police in the USA literally kill people at
| alarmingly high rates usually reserved mostly for countries
| with notoriously violent regimes or gangs, beating out
| Mexico, Sudan, Rwanda [1].
|
| "Wokeness" is a fake bear the right has built up to distract
| from class issues and sow dissent amongst workers and stave
| off class solidarity. Progressive policy is largely embraced
| by the majority of Americans [2], but because the right (and
| its newfound grifter-billionare tech exec class like PG,
| Musk, Zuck, etc.) have convinced an overwhelmingly large
| amount of Americans that their woes are because we have
| gender neutral bathrooms (instead of wage theft by the C
| suite), it is peddled and use as a smokescreen to continually
| push through policy and regime changes that will only every
| serve the .1%.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_with_annu
| al_...
|
| [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/majority-of-americans-
| suppor...
| hhh1111 wrote:
| "Paul Graham is an idiot. Heres the real issue:
| [deliberately convoluted and unfalsifiable conspiracy
| theories]"
| belter wrote:
| You did notice the trend of 2025 is Billionaires complaining?
| pxtail wrote:
| I think they don't care at all, this is just signalling,
| different camp has the power to rule the country now and
| suddenly all of them are changing their minds
| stronglikedan wrote:
| But it's not _just_ minorities who are being harassed and
| killed on a daily basis, so why should they get special
| consideration? That 's the problem I have with it. It puts
| people into buckets, and then claims one bucket is more
| important than the others, even when that bucket is
| statistically insignificant compared to the others. Wokism is
| simply racism rebranded.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| > minorities
|
| Ahem! I think you mean People of the global majority? Please
| consider using more inclusive language in the future.
| thih9 wrote:
| > Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the
| scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one.
|
| > Female students might object if someone said something they
| considered sexist, but no one was getting reported for it.
|
| Wow, PG downplaying racism and sexism was not on my 2025 bingo
| card.
|
| I hear some good points and I can understand the fatigue with
| cancel culture; still, discussing recent movements like blm and
| #metoo in negative light only seems very narrow.
|
| I guess especially for rich celebrities movements like these and
| the power they represent can feel limiting, threatening, to the
| point of feeling targeted.
| bdangubic wrote:
| wokeness will be discussed until morale improves... (or better
| said easier to rule and win elections while the masses are
| fighting the non-existent "culture war" and have no time to look
| at real problems (which whoever is ruling has no interest in
| solving..)
| _bee_hive_ wrote:
| There were some interesting points, thanks for sharing.
|
| One of the fallouts from this movement, is that the identity of
| the groups of people "wokeness" (sorry, I am using terms from his
| article) claimed to protect, are now intrinsically linked to this
| movement without their consent.
|
| I am politically progressive, but strongly believe in free speech
| especially when it comes to science and research. But as a trans
| person, I do genuinely need help sometimes to overcome folks
| biases, since we make up less than 1% of the population.
|
| My fear now is that social-justice warriors might have
| unintentionally made things even more difficult and complicated
| for me, because what I do to survive is intrinsically linked to a
| modern political movement.
|
| Hopefully something that will be considered, for folks against
| dogmatism/puritanism who still understand bias :(
| Devasta wrote:
| If woke people are performative... then what is this incoherent
| nonsense meant to be?
| khazhoux wrote:
| Actually, the origin of "wokeness", the term, is right-leaning
| bigots who need to discount any grievance by any group of people
| who claim they might just possibly be suffering some systemic
| disadvantages in this country.
| vessenes wrote:
| Nope. It was a term of respect and affirmation in the African
| American community first, and seems to have been successfully
| expropriated and rebranded.
| khazhoux wrote:
| I understand your point, but I don't think anyone used the
| word "wokeness" before the Right started it as insult.
| vessenes wrote:
| That sounds right to me, too. Five years ago someone of
| color could say to a white guy "if you're not down, you're
| at least woke" and mean it as a compliment. Not sure what
| the new way to say that would be.
| mlsu wrote:
| > What does it mean now? ...
|
| > An aggressively performative focus on social justice.
|
| > In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice.
| And that's the real problem -- the performativeness, not the
| social justice.
|
| Oh, great! Yeah, I think we should focus on effectively
| furthering social justice. Can't wait for the rest of the
| article.
|
| ...
|
| If you, like me, were waiting for PG to outline some methods for
| furthering social justice that are effective and not performative
| in the rest of this article, I have bad news for you. It seems
| that he has given no thought to it at all!
| alganet wrote:
| Just call it "The International Woke" already. It's what this is
| getting at, isn't it?
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| >Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the
| scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't
| think any reasonable person would deny that. The problem with
| political correctness was not that it focused on marginalized
| groups, but the shallow, aggressive way in which it did so.
| Instead of going out into the world and quietly helping members
| of marginalized groups, the politically correct focused on
| getting people in trouble for using the wrong words to talk about
| them.
|
| Following this logic, the Emancipation Proclamation was
| "problematic" because the "correct" thing to do is free slaves
| quietly via the underground railroad, as we wouldn't want to get
| slave owners in trouble.
|
| This is fundamentally an argument against systemic change, as
| "getting people in trouble" is both core to the genesis and the
| enforcement of things like the Civil Rights act.
|
| Attacking "wokeness" with this argument is deeply problematic,
| and extremely tone deaf in the wake of the Meta moderation leaks,
| wherein their internal documents highlight that the new
| moderation changes allow statements like "Immigrants are grubby,
| filthy pieces of shit."
| Bearstrike wrote:
| >Following this logic, the Emancipation Proclamation was
| "problematic" because the "correct" thing to do is free slaves
| quietly via the underground railroad, as we wouldn't want to
| get slave owners in trouble.
|
| Present-day racism and slavery are in completely different
| neighborhoods of magnitude; to the extent that the comparison
| borders on false equivalency.
|
| >...the new moderation changes allow statements like
| "Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit."
|
| If a platform is attempting to operate within the ethos/spirit
| of free speech, you 'should' be allowed to make such statements
| on the platform. The root of the argument is the disagreement
| on whether and where one should be "allowed" to say those
| things.
|
| Saying it's problematic is not a trump card (no pun intended).
| If you can demonstrate how allowing people to say
| offensive/harmful things (excluding established limits on free
| speech regarding safety) is inconsistent with free speech, then
| you're adding something to the discussion. Anything else is
| likely a disagreement on utility of free speech vs. civility; a
| place where folks can agree to disagree.
| magicalist wrote:
| > _If a platform is attempting to operate within the ethos
| /spirit of free speech, you 'should' be allowed to make such
| statements on the platform._
|
| Ah, but you aren't allowed to say "Christian men are totally
| useless" or "Lesbians are so stupid", so it sounds like you
| should take up the ethos/spirit of free speech with Meta as
| well.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'm reminded of a lyric from "Mississippi Goddamn."
|
| > Don't tell me, I tell you
|
| > Me and my people just about due
|
| > I've been there so I know
|
| > They keep on saying "Go slow"
| lenova wrote:
| I find it hilarious that the prophet of modern Startup Culture
| and its subsequent proliferation of Y Combinator/FAANG cult
| practices (e.g. growth at all costs or practising agile as a
| copy-cat set of misunderstood tech rituals) is blind to fact that
| the only ones proselytising about "wokeness" these days are the
| same ones trying to outrage you about it (i.e. Fox News and Elon
| Musk) in order to distract you from the fact that wealth and
| resources are being hoarded by the very same
| companies/individuals.
| jrm4 wrote:
| Black person here.
|
| Like most discussions of "woke" and "wokeness," this one too
| fails HARD by not fully and directly addressing the origins of
| the term -- and by "fails hard" I do mean will almost certainly
| do more obscuring than clarifying by starting from an
| information-deficient premise.
|
| Including, e.g. "The term 'woke' has its origins in the Black
| American community as a signifier of awareness about ones
| political and social situation..." is a bare minimum.
| causal wrote:
| There is so very little citation or substantiation in the
| entire essay. Even the footnotes are largely just more
| speculation. He presents it as some kind of historical record
| but it's literally just his thoughts.
| throwaway63467 wrote:
| I did not expect CEOs / industry titans to fall in line with the
| new regime so quickly, in the few weeks since Trumps election
| most tech leaders have completely changed their public stance on
| these topics. Why are they so afraid? Or are they simply happy to
| drop the charade as it seems clear the wind blows the other way
| now?
|
| I wasn't feeling very positive about all the talk about making
| the world a better place but recently I've become quite cynical,
| it's really just about the money it seems. I even find this whole
| hacker ethic quite stupid now, basically all that ethos about
| free software was just instrumented by corporations to extract
| wealth, and now that AI is seemingly around the corner they can
| finally drop most people building the software for them, as that
| was always the biggest cost center anyway.
| lostdog wrote:
| IMO most of these CEOs are not motivated by wokeness or anti
| wokeness. They are motivated by money, and the freedom to take
| whatever action they deem appropriate both inside and outside
| their companies.
|
| Biden was anti-monopoly and Trump is pro-corporate, so these
| CEOs are just naturally aligning according to their own
| motivations. And like all people, sometimes they take on the
| other priorities of the group, to feel that they fit in.
| throwaway63467 wrote:
| The fact they do this is not very surprising, what I find
| surprising is the velocity of the change of sentiment in
| large parts of the tech industry. It seems a lot of people
| were fed up caring about these topics and feel safe to openly
| say so now. That wasn't the case during the first Trump
| administration, so I wonder what affected this change of
| heart now?
| int_19h wrote:
| I would imagine it's the fact that during the first Trump
| admin, the political elites were still mostly old-school
| and only giving token support to MAGA talking points to
| score some easy points with their electorate. Given that
| the admin was mostly run by those same people in practice
| until very late into his first term, I think it wasn't seen
| as something serious.
|
| But this time around, we're looking at a full term by an
| admin that is staffed for the most part by die-hard
| Trumpists who make it very loud and clear that this
| particular topic is of utmost concern to them. Republicans
| in Congress are also much more in line with that.
|
| Perhaps even more importantly, this change of sentiment
| didn't start with tech - it started with prominent figures
| among the establishment liberals publicly calling out
| "excesses", and while this narrative received some pushback
| already, it has received way more support among the rank
| and file. This is a signal that the next Dem
| administration, should there be one, is likely to be much
| more hands-off in these regards. So, then, why would big
| tech stick to their guns on DEI if it disadvantages them
| immediately with no clear advantage to hope for in the
| future?
|
| I agree that velocity is surprising, though. Mostly because
| it makes it very clear that any talk of "values" has
| _always_ been bullshit, so why would this new take be an
| exception? MAGA folk don 't seem particularly convinced
| that e.g. Zuck is sincere, and I can't blame them.
| uludag wrote:
| This article reads like a just-so story. Sounds plausible, but
| there's so much wiggle room for the narrative. And the
| "solutions" to _wokeness_ he wrote left me puzzled, questioning
| whether the issues he paints were thought through. He mentions
| two solutions to _wokeness_ : treat _wokeness_ like a religion
| and submit it to "customs", and "fight back." So... essentially
| fight emotivism with emotivism. What does it mean to fight back
| and submit to customs other than perpetuation the same thing
| that's being criticized.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Actually having a substantive argument about right and wrong is
| fraught, and so it's much easier to hide behind a combination of
| tone policing and armchair psychoanalysis of your opponents.
|
| Better to accuse your (imaginary) interlocutor of being a
| moralist, a meaningless term that tells me much more about your
| feelings on being "told what to do" than it does about your
| actual values.
| archagon wrote:
| > _Woke, the African-American English synonym for the General
| American English word awake, has since the 1930s or earlier been
| used to refer to awareness of social and political issues
| affecting African Americans, often in the construction stay
| woke._
|
| Rich white man uses "explanation" of African American social
| justice concept to vent his feelings on political correctness.
| Gets upvoted to top of largest tech forum in SV.
|
| Fuck, that's embarrassing. (And just... incredibly offensive.)
|
| Also, I find it very suspicious that this article wasn't flagged
| to death as obvious rage-bait. Do the mods make exceptions for
| pg?
| justin66 wrote:
| Eh. The relevant parties are largely incapable of feeling
| embarrassment.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| > In 2020 we saw the biggest accelerant of all, after a white
| police officer ~~asphyxiated~~ a black suspect on video.
|
| This is quite some impressive editorializing, especially when the
| black "suspect's" killer is currently in prison for murder. I
| only highlight this because it indicates a very particular
| viewpoint held by the author - particularly stuff like this -
|
| > And that's the real problem -- the performativeness, not the
| social justice.
|
| So, he states very early the _performativeness_ is the issue.
| But, inevitably, when you ask these same people what then
| _should_ be done about inequality, whether it be racial or
| otherwise, the answer is often "nothing" or denying that a
| problem even exists. I don't pretend to know this author's view
| here, but I'm just pointing out that the sentence quoted here is
| kind of dishonest - the implication being that if
| performativeness regarding social justice is a problem, that you
| should then focus on real efforts around social justice. This
| isn't mentioned a single time in this nonsensical screed, getting
| close in parts like this answering the "what now?":
|
| > In fact there's an even more ambitious goal: is there a way to
| prevent any similar outbreak of aggressively performative
| moralism in the future -- not just a third outbreak political
| correctness, but the next thing like it? Because there will be a
| next thing. Prigs are prigs by nature. They need rules to obey
| and enforce, and now that Darwin has cut off their traditional
| supply of rules, they're constantly hungry for new ones. All they
| need is someone to meet them halfway by defining a new way to be
| morally pure, and we'll see the same phenomenon again.
|
| So, this author undermines his entire "point" (if a real one
| existed) with stuff like this, because the obvious conclusion is
| that any real effort at correcting social injustice and
| inequality will be met by cries of "aggressive performative
| moralism" by people exactly like this. From my view, that's
| probably the point, just please don't pretend you're doing
| anything intellectual here.
|
| I'll leave this, this certainly does sound very "conventionally
| minded" (as he uses in a derogatory manner throughout this):
|
| > Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd
| previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be
| that they're wrong
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > But, inevitably, when you ask these same people what then
| should be done about inequality, whether it be racial or
| otherwise, the answer is often "nothing" or denying that a
| problem even exists.
|
| That's an assumption you're making - I don't see any evidence
| of that viewpoint in pg's essay. Any specifics you can point
| to?
|
| I can point to a specific that seems to contradict you:
|
| > But by the same token we should not automatically reject
| everything the woke believe. I'm not a Christian, but I can see
| that many Christian principles are good ones. It would be a
| mistake to discard them all just because one didn't share the
| religion that espoused them. It would be the sort of thing a
| religious zealot would do.
|
| Inevitably, someone will chime in and say that it wasn't what
| he said, it's what he _didn 't_ say -- arguing from someone's
| purported silence. But that's exactly the kind of performative
| nonsense he's arguing against. It ought to be possible to speak
| against something without being castigated for failing to pay
| lip service in some way to a related topic.
| JohnMakin wrote:
| This line of questioning is extremely annoying, and if I can
| be frank, also sounds very dishonest. You already answered
| your own question, knowing what it is, but I'll walk you
| through it -
|
| His core "thesis" or "problem" here is the performative
| nature of social justice initiatives. He's correct, they
| often are performative. This does imply, on its face, that
| some efforts should be done to enact _real_ initiatives that
| are _not_ performative. I 'm sure we can agree there this is
| what is implied by his statement.
|
| Why then, would a serious author with this problem statement,
| then proceed to write thousands of words bemoaning the
| underlying _nature_ of the initiatives themselves (without
| addressing what about them makes them performative, not even
| a single time in this essay) or about not being able to say
| "negro", rather than coming up with even a single conclusion
| on what must be done instead? I mean, you can just take a
| random sampling of the comments in this thread, which
| honestly shocks me it's not been flagged, to see precisely
| how people with his same viewpoint interpreted it. Lets
| please not pretend here. I can't exactly get on the phone and
| ask him what he thinks the answer to this question is - I can
| only go on a huge volume of discourse that has gone on for
| many, many years and make some conclusions on my own based on
| what he spent a very large amount of words complaining about,
| and shocker, none of them had to do with the ineffectiveness
| of social justice initiatives or "wokeness" (how he defines
| it), but rather how it oppresses _him._
|
| Does that help?
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > Why then [...] rather than coming up with even a single
| conclusion on what must be done instead?
|
| Because (a) that's not the topic at hand, and (b) in
| American discourse, it's rather obvious what the correct
| (or at least default) position is with regard to racial
| discrimination and injustice: _Don 't discriminate on the
| basis of skin color, national origin, or any number of
| other things that have nothing to do with a person's
| character. Love your neighbor as yourself._ It's even been
| written into law, including an amendment to our
| constitution.
|
| > sounds very dishonest
|
| I can assure you, I am sincere and not drying to deceive.
| What do you think my real intent is?
| torlok wrote:
| How much money do you have to have before your beliefs stop
| changing like a flag in the political wind?
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| To be fair to pg, he has hinted at anti-radical-left beliefs
| before (see the essay about moral fashions). He is probably
| able to voice anti-radical-left views now because the Overton
| Window has shifted.
| elbasti wrote:
| pg has been pretty consistent in this position for a long time.
| His worldview is closest to what one could call "classical
| liberalism":
|
| Free speech, economic liberalism, civil liberties, individual
| autonomy.
|
| That's a worldview that is pretty idiosyncratic today (sadly).
|
| On some topics he's "left wing" (pro palestine), on others he's
| "right wing" (anti affirmative action in university
| admissions).
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| If you want some critique of the thing PG thinks he's critiquing
| (which, to parallel what he says about social oppression, is a
| problem but not of the nature or relative magnitude he thinks it
| is), but from people who have agendas to oppose social oppression
| instead of to protect it along with their own wealth and power,
| you could start with:
|
| How Much Discomfort Is the Whole World Worth?: Movement building
| requires a culture of listening--not mastery of the right
| language. by Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba
| https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/how-much-discomfort-is...
|
| we will not cancel us. by adrienne maree brown
| https://adriennemareebrown.net/2018/05/10/we-will-not-cancel...
| ajbt200128 wrote:
| thank you for the sane comment. adrienne maree brown is
| wonderful
| evmar wrote:
| This is pretty much a canonical example of what does not belong
| on HN. A dumb topic, and then on top of that a dumb take on that
| dumb topic.
| sorenjan wrote:
| Is this a subject Paul has expressed an interest in before, or is
| this another instance of tech founders cozying up to the incoming
| president before he's installed? There seems to be a lot of that
| going around in Silicon Valley lately, is something threatening
| their billions of dollars if they don't toe the line?
| gdwatson wrote:
| He's been interested in how taboos influence our thought and
| speech for a long time: https://www.paulgraham.com/say.html .
| sorenjan wrote:
| Yet this article is the only mention of the term "woke" on
| his site. What a strange coincidence that it happens now even
| though he's been interested in the topic since at least 2004.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| He's been pretty consistent about this.
| projectileboy wrote:
| This is a weird hill to die on for a billionaire. Is wokeness a
| problem? If I recast it as an assault on free speech, sure. But
| exactly how bad is this assault? I sure hear a lot of really rich
| people talk about wokeness, despite the proclaimed suppression of
| their speech. And is it as much of a problem as racism, sexism,
| homophobia or other forms of bigotry endemic in our society?
| projectileboy wrote:
| I just picked this one at random today; took about a minute to
| find something: https://www.startribune.com/mom-ids-son-as-
| teen-left-with-br...
|
| I'm relieved to read that racism isn't as bad as I think it is.
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the
| scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one. I don't
| think any reasonable person would deny that.
|
| _Au contraire_ , the idea that racism is a problem is now
| labeled "critical race theory" and it's a crime to spread this
| knowledge to students in multiple states.
|
| Teachers in Oklahoma can't teach students the fact that the Tulsa
| Massacre was race-driven.
|
| So Paul himself, it appears, has given himself over to the
| wokeness by acknowledging that racism is a genuine problem.
| hhh1111 wrote:
| This is a dishonest argument. Paul can oppose an ideology
| without agreeing with everyone and especially extremists who
| also oppose that same ideology.
|
| I dont think wokeness or paul graham are communist or fascist
| respectively so forgive the hysterical sound of the analogy im
| going to make here, but i think your argument is similar in
| reasoning to this one:
|
| You oppose fascism? Well, fascism opposed gulags. If you oppose
| gulags I guess you were a fascist after all."
| mullingitover wrote:
| > Paul can oppose an ideology without agreeing with everyone
| and especially extremists who also oppose that same ideology.
|
| He's doing it by conflating 'priggishness' (puritanical moral
| conservatism) with a movement that's advocating for equity
| and trying to dismantle structural oppression. He's deftly
| sidestepping the power dynamics at play, which fundamentally
| distinguish these two things. It just so happens that he's in
| a class of people who sit at the top of a tower of structural
| advantages benefitting him as he tut-tuts people who are
| pointing out that they're oppressive to some groups.
|
| Ultimately he's just building a massive wall of text strawman
| for things he doesn't grasp and attacking it. We're fully in
| the era of this lazy take, like a dam breaking loose, lots of
| people who have been threatened by those movements are
| finally feeling free to attack them en masse.
| hhh1111 wrote:
| >a movement thats advocating for equity and trying to
| dismantle structural oppression.
|
| Well, for years those advocates did so with censorship,
| gaslighting, destruction of property, threats and calls for
| violence, etc. They had a hysterical fervor and lack of
| rationality that did often seem quasi religious. I dont
| think Paul's understanding is perfect but the parallels to
| religious puritanism are quite obviously there.
| Sandworm5639 wrote:
| That Elon/Twitter part was really out of place, like a VPN ad
| integration in the middle of a Youtube video. Attributing the
| rise of wokeness to students becoming deans and administrators
| sounds kinda dubious but maybe, he could use more evidence there.
|
| Otherwise a great piece.
| jdonaldson wrote:
| I would have to refute the notion that wokeness is a mind virus.
| "Stay Woke" has a much deeper origin in African American culture,
| and it refers to the fact that one needs to stay vigilant about
| another's intentions.
|
| The implicit message is that the "us" cannot trust the "they",
| and writers like Paul Graham show the reason why: Any attempt at
| social change can easily be labeled a virus by capitalists if it
| does not produce greater prosperity. It's the same prosperity
| that has poisoned the earth, so I hope they have answers there
| too.
| Clubber wrote:
| >"Stay Woke" has a much deeper origin in African American
| culture, and it refers to the fact that one needs to stay
| vigilant about another's intentions.
|
| Yes, this origin is correct as I remember it. I first heard the
| term publicly from Larry on his show a decade or so ago, mainly
| referring to police interactions. He presented it well using
| comedy, unlike the rabid versions of today. He presented it too
| well as today, it seems this movement has since taken over by
| (mostly) white college people to service their own selfish
| ends; that's the mind virus part.
|
| This clip pretty much encapsulates this idea:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAbTOcVJgM8
| jdonaldson wrote:
| It's true, but one has to ask "who made woke-ism into a mind
| virus?". I think alt-right media say that BLM/Liberals have,
| but in reality it went viral when it became a favored
| perjorative and performative act by the alt right, a sort of
| gradual straw man argument that became true by its own
| belief. That's the textbook definition of a virus if I've
| ever seen one.
| tompagenet2 wrote:
| At no point in this long piece does the author seem to consider
| that people may be "woke" because they sincerely believe that
| they need to raise their and other people's awareness of
| prejudice or ways in which society puts people down. Instead it
| immediately assumes it's a liberal arts movement from those lefty
| universities.
|
| Of course any cause or point can and likely will be distorted,
| and some will be performative. There are also, e.g. performative
| people who like to moan about lefties in universities, but this
| kind of low effort behaviour doesn't in itself undermine
| reasonable criticism about e.g. universities sometimes being too
| intolerant of free speech.
|
| My point is this is fairly lazy. It starts assuming woke, which I
| note the author agrees is often used perjoratively (and therefore
| is surely used in a specific loaded way, in the same way if I
| call someone a piece of shit I'm not generally using it to praise
| the human body's ability to excrete waste effectively), is some
| performative nonsense and not wondering or being curious whether
| there's something useful or at least sincere underneath that.
|
| This would all be fine if there was a bit more thoughtful
| distinction and critical appraisal of the author's work, and he
| wasn't treated with such uncritical reverence.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The reason the student protests of the 1960s didn't lead to
| political correctness was precisely that -- they were student
| movements. They didn't have any real power.
|
| I don't know what Graham thinks 'political correctness' would
| have looked like in the 1960s - most Americans still thought
| women's lib was a joke, many Americans were fighting to preserve
| segregation, and nobody had heard of such a thing as a gay rights
| movement.
| sedatk wrote:
| Thinking about progress, I read that AfD's chancellor candidate
| was a lesbian. That would be unimaginable two decades ago let
| alone the 60's. Even the right is progressing and they don't
| know it.
| mrkeen wrote:
| I had a similar double-take moment reading about Breitbart
| editor "Milo Yiannopoulos" a few years ago.
|
| Different racist cultures develop different ideas on what
| makes someone white. "Yiannopoulos" might be called a 'wog':
| The slur became widely diffused in Australia with an increase
| in immigration from Southern Europe and the Levant after the
| Second World War, and the term expanded to include all
| immigrants from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East.
| These new arrivals were perceived by the majority population
| as contrasting with the larger predominant Anglo-Celtic
| Australian people. [1]
|
| I couldn't remember his name in order to write this up, so I
| went googling and stumbled across Afro-Cuban Proud Boys
| leader "Enrique Tarrio".
|
| All boats rise with the tide I guess.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wog
| baumschubser wrote:
| > unimaginable two decades ago let alone the 60's
|
| Ernst Rohm, leader of the Nazi's SA forces, was gay. People
| did not join the Nazi movement because of the impeccable life
| style of their leaders, but their political program. Same
| with AfD or Trumpists.
| sedatk wrote:
| Sure, the history is full of gays who were closeted or
| whose homosexuality were open secrets. But those have
| always been kept plausibly deniable towards the public, not
| open like this at all.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| > I read that AfD's chancellor candidate
|
| Not only lesbian. Living with a Sri Lankan woman and raising
| two boys. And living not in Germany, but Switzerland.
|
| Seems to bend herself quite a lot to gain power ...
| rat87 wrote:
| I don't think its accurate to describe the AfD as right wing.
| Far right or possibly fascist
| sedatk wrote:
| That only makes the progressive outlook more remarkable.
| thrance wrote:
| Peter Thiel is gay and still advocates against gay marriage
| (He's married to a man himself).
|
| Those people know the restrictions they push for won't apply
| to them, they are too powerful, quite literally above the
| law.
| fatbird wrote:
| Any real history of "political correctness," if we're going to
| use that term to mean the pursuit of social justice, will be
| incomplete without an accounting of the internal struggles of
| various activist causes when confronted with their own
| wrongdoing/ignorance/blindness/lack of "political correctness".
|
| One of the best examples is the women's movement in the 70s
| being confronted internally by minority women blaming middle
| class white women for winning the right to work in an office
| building, when minority women had long been holding down jobs
| and needed other forms of championing, such as against police
| abuse, or the effects of poverty, or discrimination against
| their sexaul orientation.
|
| It's insane to reduce the drive for political correctness to a
| bunch of radical students becoming tenured professors and
| unleashing their inner prigs against everyone else.
| causal wrote:
| He's presenting his own musings as some kind of historical
| record. Utterly unburdened by the need for data to back up his
| narrative.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| The Internet has finally allowed the wealthy and powerful to
| converse at the same level and in the same space as your big
| brother's friend who smokes a lot of weed and knows that the
| government is suppressing a car that runs on water
| chrisjj wrote:
| Not all bad, then.
| PpEY4fu85hkQpn wrote:
| I have to admit it's pretty funny that all of the citations
| in the piece are just more of his own opinions.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Yup, Graham utterly fails to get over the bare minimum bar of
| American social justice critique, which is "What side of the
| civil rights movement would your proposed ideology have landed
| on?"
| wendyshu wrote:
| Are you sure? He says 'And that's the real problem -- the
| performativeness, not the social justice.'
| lbrito wrote:
| As an outsider, the rambling against wokeness is insufferable,
| even though I personally agree with some points usually brought
| up.
|
| I only found out what wokeness is from people ranting against it,
| and never really see anyone arguing in favor of it. It has become
| a mania of the right.
| Dowwie wrote:
| Paul was on the board of, and advisor to, many of these companies
| that exported their culture to the world through their products
| and services. He wasn't the black sheep of the group whom others
| simply ignored and promoted their own independent political
| convictions.
| timeon wrote:
| There is reason why he is writing this now. He did not get rich
| by having an opinion.
| dang wrote:
| I don't understand what this comment is trying to say, but the
| image of pg being on the board of companies (other than one
| that he founded) is pretty funny. I can't imagine him wanting
| to do that.
| nicebyte wrote:
| I've lived long enough to see pg turn into a boomer-ass uncle
| lmao.
| nicebyte wrote:
| It's also very funny that he decided to publish this _now_ of
| all times.
| driggs wrote:
| It's no coincidence that PG published this days before
| Trump's inauguration.
|
| This is yet another Silicon Valley elite kowtowing to their
| new GOP overlords.
| sedatk wrote:
| The rich are choosing sides for Trump era, and this is just a
| white flag raised.
| bnetd wrote:
| The one thing I'll never understand are people using self-
| aggrandizing titles on things that are otherwise vacuous
| shitposts. It happens more with blogs than it does with actual,
| hardcover published books. Maybe "Ferromagnetism" by Bozorth but
| at least he discovered/invented a particular combination that
| works well so he gets a free pass by the virtue of it.
|
| (to be clear i'm not calling Bozorth's work a shitpost, but you
| have to got to have balls to slam that kind of title on a
| textbook)
| csours wrote:
| Abbot and Costello - Who's on First -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYOUFGfK4bU
|
| SNL - Republican or Not -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8h_N80qKYOM
|
| If one desires understanding and learning about the world, one
| must remain curious and humble. Unfortunately curious and humble
| people are generally not as emotionally and more importantly,
| _politically_ activated.
|
| So a politician may go looking for a subject that will be
| emotionally activating to as many people as possible. It barely
| matters whether more people will be on their side or the other
| side. As long as the fight is going, they will get engagement.
|
| It is very difficult to motivate a person towards a complex world
| where the other side is made of humans (sinners, but still
| human).
|
| It is much easier to motivate a person towards a simple world
| where their own side is righteous and the other side is composed
| of demons.
|
| ---
|
| So, is the other side made of sinners or demons?
| aklemm wrote:
| It's _perceived_ as performative by the dominant culture because
| it 's purpose is to bring certain injustices to light; injustices
| that are sometimes nuanced, but usually just obscured by history
| and bias.
|
| That's about as long an essay at PG has ever written; red flag.
|
| Imagine individuals and their experiences that "wokeness" is
| meant to help and notice none of that is recognized in the essay.
| skyyler wrote:
| >and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users the way
| Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without censoring
| either.
|
| Type the word "cisgender" on twitter and say that again, Paul.
| ralfd wrote:
| https://x.com/search?q=Cisgender&src=typed_query&f=live
|
| There are many typing that word?
| skyyler wrote:
| Try posting it yourself. See what happens.
| kstrauser wrote:
| I deleted my account long ago. What happens if you type
| that?
| gm678 wrote:
| Given that Derek Chauvin was sentenced to 22.5 years in prison
| for murder, it feels quite shameful for the author to be unable
| to name his victim as anything other than "the suspect" - the
| sentence feels like one of endless examples of the 'past
| exonerative tense.' Similarly, given that up to 26 million people
| participated in protests over the _murder_ (not "asphyxiation"),
| minimizing what seem to be by any count the largest mass protest
| movement in US history as "riots" is nothing but a thought-
| terminating cliche.
|
| Similarly, the article claims that the New York Times has become
| far left, but offers no evidence for this. When I think of the
| NYT in 2020, however, while there certainly were articles using
| the priggish language that Graham denounce, I immediately think
| of the Times's decision to feature an op-ed by Tom Cotton (right
| to far-right politican) suggesting that the nearly two-century
| long norm that the US government should not use its military to
| police its citizens (formalized in the post-Civil War Posse
| Comitatus Act) be broken in favor of an "overwhelming show of
| force" against "protest marches." In general, the New York Times
| has firmly remained a centrist (small-l liberal) newspaper, and I
| think claiming it has experienced massive ideological drift
| without providing examples says more about the writer than the
| paper.
|
| In general, I feel like the essay shows a base disregard towards
| the concept of accurate history (suggesting that "homophobia" was
| a neologism invented "for the purpose [of political correctness]"
| during "the early 2010s" and fails to convince me of any of its
| points because of this.
| Karupan wrote:
| The timing on when this essay is being published is interesting.
| Are all the tech billionaires falling in line before the next
| administration takes over? Also, let this be a lesson that no
| matter how "brilliant" and rich someone is, they can have
| comically bad takes.
| santoshalper wrote:
| Paul would much rather make a punching bag out of straw than
| actually grapple with the massive inequality that he has
| personally helped cause. Just remember guys, the real problem our
| society faces is that someone was once mean to paulg on Twitter.
| aspenmayer wrote:
| Here are some takes on woke from the left:
|
| The Origins of Contemporary Woke Culture ft Christian Parenti
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxdBOxl_eik
|
| which is an excerpt from the full This is Revolution podcast
| episode:
|
| The Cargo Cult of Woke ft. Christian Parenti
|
| https://www.youtube.com/live/6TJbv45DJyk
|
| Chris Hedges interviewed Parenti also
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTpeQ4V-YeY
|
| https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/how-wokeness-kills-class-...
| whatever1 wrote:
| So now the ones who want to preserve the constitution and the
| democratic processes (aka by demanding peaceful handover of power
| instead of hanging the Vice President), are woke.
|
| Strong Weimar vibes from our billionaires.
| soheil wrote:
| Unbelievable how anti-pg hn has gotten. I don't think what pg is
| saying is anything new, he's always had the same sentiment around
| anti-censorship, anti-authoritarian/mob and pro-breaking-the-
| rules attitude.
|
| It's called "hacker" news for a reason.
| bpt3 wrote:
| I take it as more of an indicator of how much liberal sentiment
| has shifted over the last 15 or so years.
| dang wrote:
| That plus the community having grown.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| It's just the people online posting non-stop. The rest of us,
| checking in only when time allows, are not commenting 30 times
| in a single thread. (Check some of the posters here)
|
| Same thing happened with the rest of the nonsense over the last
| 5 years. From social media you would think everyone took the
| clot shot. 1/3 didn't but you'd never have known that from HN
| or other social media.
|
| There is a small but loud contingent who wants to dictate our
| language, how we teach our children, and what we put in to our
| bodies. The good news is most people are not stupid and are
| completely rejecting it - in real life.
| stahtops wrote:
| [flagged]
| commandlinefan wrote:
| My reddit account was permanently banned for _upvoting_
| vaccine hesitancy.
| whatwhaaaaat wrote:
| "Bro" but you did.
|
| The federal government censored speech it didn't like by
| PAYING social media to delete it. In many instances it was
| content that was objectively true.
|
| Public schools are right now telling children in
| kindergarten they can choose their own gender. They cannot.
|
| The federal government wanted to implement policies to
| require administration of an experimental gene therapy,
| that didn't even work and was never even tested for
| protection against transmission, and many many people were
| forced in to taking it if they wanted to keep their job.
|
| I've voted for left progressive candidates for 20 years but
| I can't vote for this shit any more and judging by the
| recent election neither can over half of America. Have fun
| crying about trump for the next four years.
| electriclove wrote:
| HN has many of those who have gone through the indoctrination
| process in college that he describes in the essay.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| It is extremely silly and in bad faith to accuse anyone to
| disagree with of indoctrination, but it's even sillier when
| every single tech bro is basically the same person, reads the
| same books, repeats the same topics, on the same day using
| the same phraseology.
|
| You could have literally taken this essay from PG posted it
| on the timeline of any single one of his colleagues and you
| couldn't even tell who wrote it. The "anti woke" economy, if
| you look at the numbers accounts of that flavor do on
| Youtube, Twitter et al. is a magnitude if not larger than
| what, according to them, cannot be criticized.
|
| The phrase "woke mind virus" also featured in this essay, is
| more of a literal meme or mind virus in the Dawkins sense of
| that term than anything it attempts to address. The lack of
| awareness to accuse others of indoctrination when you write
| an essay so generic that you can autocomplete the last 90%
| after reading the first 10% chatgpt style is quite something.
| Dalewyn wrote:
| >The phrase "woke mind virus" also featured in this essay,
| is more of a literal meme or mind virus in the Dawkins
| sense of that term than anything it attempts to address.
|
| I find the allusion to viruses, whether biological or
| computer, quite apt.
|
| I've lost many friends going off the deep end after they
| succumbed to the incessant sensationalizing, fearmongering,
| and virtue signalling from the Left. Woke mind virus
| indeed.
| elicksaur wrote:
| Tech billionaire Paul Graham is the establishment.
|
| Miss when his essays were actually about hacking!
| redeux wrote:
| Exactly, this "hacker" news. Where does this screed from PG fit
| into that? If this was published by literally anyone else it
| wouldn't have been allowed in the first place.
| superdisk wrote:
| Hacking isn't just about computer programming, you could call
| it a philosophy.
| adiabatty wrote:
| I think tracking vibe shifts is interesting and noteworthy.
| enragedcacti wrote:
| Yeah man, he's really breaking out of the mold by doing the
| exact same thing all the other SF billionaires are doing by
| sucking up to the right wing. Even braver and more punk of him,
| like Zuck, to only do it after the right wing won the election.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I'll give my opinion, as someone who used to hold pg in
| extremely high regard, but who is often surprised at just how
| thoroughly uninsightful pg's essays seem to me now.
|
| The biggest problem I see with pg, and basically with all of
| the SV elite, is that I _rarely_ see them question any of their
| assumptions or conclusions that don 't lead them to "everything
| I've done is right, or at least the original goals of the 'SV
| ethos' is the best thing for society."
|
| For example, take the concept of meritocracy. I _completely
| agree_ that I think the "wokeness" of many on the left went
| way overboard in demonizing meritocratic processes, e.g.
| getting rid of advanced classes and opportunities for some
| students in the name of "fairness". At the same time, I rarely
| if ever see these SV kingpins suggest viable solutions to the
| fact that in the relatively new "winner take all" tech-led
| economy, very bad things happen if only a teeny meritocratic
| elite hoards all the wealth and leaves everyone else in an
| extremely precarious state. For a counterpoint as to someone
| who I _do_ find insightful, consider Scott Galloway. He is
| _definitely_ not someone who I would call woke, but he also
| understands some of the real problems so often ignored by the
| "tech utopianists".
|
| In this particular pg essay, there is not much I disagree with,
| but I didn't really learn anything from it either. I'm also
| extremely suspect at all these SV leaders suddenly highlighting
| their views that are conveniently in lock step with the new
| administration. Like you say, pg has talked about this before,
| so I'm not saying his thoughts aren't genuine, I just think
| what Tim Sweeney said recently is pretty spot on "All these SV
| leaders pretended to be Democrats, and now they're pretending
| to be Republicans." It's similar to how I feel about
| Zuckerberg's recent pronouncements. When I first heard them,
| most of them I agreed with and they made sense to me. Then I
| read the actual new "hateful conduct" guidelines and I almost
| threw up. I'm actually fine with being able to call gay people
| like me mentally ill - I'm willing to debate that 9 ways to
| Sunday. But kindly STFU about "free speech" when _only_ gay and
| transgender people had a specific carve out to allow for their
| denigration. Like I have to listen to all this crazy religious
| bullshit that in a sane world we 'd recognize as symptoms of
| schizophrenia, yet if I said that on FB that would go against
| their new hateful conduct guidelines.
|
| Frankly, I see pg largely as another uninteresting SV elite:
| someone very, very smart and who obviously worked very hard,
| but who was also obviously extremely lucky and now thinks that
| his thoughts are worth so much more than anyone else.
| zug_zug wrote:
| _shrug_ Well I 've been on HN for about 20 years, and I'm not
| anti-pg (he's about 50/50 by my accounting). I'm also anti-
| censorship, anti-authoritarian, anti-mob.
|
| But he missed the mark here. It feels like he published a
| first-draft without getting any dissenting takes on one of the
| biggest hot-button topics on the web. I (or a million other
| people) would have been happy to read a draft of this and
| explain that he'd create offense and confusion with his...
| _attempt to explain the history of priggishness around social
| justice_ based on his lived experience... if that 's really
| what this is supposed to be.
| archagon wrote:
| This is simply bad writing. And it's also quite offensive given
| the origin (and eventual conservative perversion) of the term
| "woke."
| octernion wrote:
| ah yes an ill-informed whiny screed about wokeness is exactly
| the kind of content pg is good for. that's hacker content right
| there!
| j-bos wrote:
| I thought it was more pro woke than anti pg, still I was
| surprised.
| unsupp0rted wrote:
| > The more general problem -- how to prevent similar outbreaks of
| aggressively performative moralism -- is of course harder.
|
| It would help to be a multi-planetary civilization, because seen
| from afar it's obvious wokeness, or prudishness or what-have-you
| is a bad idea.
|
| Most people have antibodies to wokeness in the sense that it's
| easy to see it's performative. People, especially the internet
| generation, have finely-tuned BS detectors.
|
| But as PG said, the majority are performing not to be lauded but
| to avoid being ostracized/canceled/fired.
|
| With some physical and societal distance, say 140 million miles,
| perhaps that's enough of a barrier to let one society deal with
| the latest prudishness while the other remains healthy, then
| switch.
| throw101010qwe wrote:
| This is a politically charged discussion but I think it
| demonstrates some of the problem. Left arguments, just like the
| right, devolve into a theme of you are with us or a racist. There
| is no middle ground. I am no longer in the Bay Area but I still
| remember one of the depressing defining moments of this during
| the BLM protests. Shop owners would throw up signs that literally
| would say "We are minority owned, please don't destroy our shop".
| In my mind it's the wrong way to think about it, does that mean
| we are giving the ok to destroy non-minority businesses? If you
| were to ask that question at that time, you would get labeled
| quite quickly as a racist.
|
| The shame about everything these days is you cannot have a
| discussion anymore, maybe it never existed. I am not a republican
| but I also cannot stand the outspoken left shouting over everyone
| else in CA. Does that mean I am antiwoke?
| medion wrote:
| Why are the tech elite and right so obsessed with this term? It's
| such a bizarre phenomenon - I can't wrap my head around it.
| elschneider wrote:
| [flagged]
| _def wrote:
| This kind of "upspeaking" will probably get more accepted and
| popular now. Dark times ahead.
| elschneider wrote:
| yeah, I have underestimated the lust for authoritarianism in
| silicon valley tbh
| arh68 wrote:
| FWIW, my llama suggests that the _original_ usage of the term
| `political correctness` was somewhat inverted:
|
| > _The term "political correctness" was first used in a political
| sense by Maoist factions within the American New Left movement
| during the 1970s. It was employed to criticize liberal critics
| who were perceived as compromising revolutionary principles for
| the sake of mainstream acceptance._
|
| So the original sense was a too-centrist/too-mild/too-pragmatic
| sort of INcorrectness. I found that interesting.
|
| Is wokeness / anti-wokeness the new heresy ? Cool beans. I'm not
| really interested either way.
| dj_gitmo wrote:
| There is an entire cottage industry on Substack of people writing
| about Wokeness. It has been covered extensively and I do not feel
| like PG is adding anything new here.
|
| IMO Freddie deBoer wrote the best definition of "Woke", something
| that many people fail to grasp.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20230404013504/https://freddiede...
| slowhadoken wrote:
| Woke is apart of neoliberalism, the other half is probably MAGA.
| It's post-political think, a fake competition that coerces you
| into arguing within private sector terms. If MAGA is FOX News
| then Woke is CNN/MSNBC. It's harder to define woke because it's
| built on old postmodern language-power games. The most obnoxious
| games that wokies play are semantic games and riddles. For
| example: "what is woke, you don't even know what it is."
| Similarly I've heard people say "how am I not myself?" A: when
| you're aloof. Woke is nostalgia for America's anti-Soviet
| propaganda. It's an antagonistic parody.
| frenchmajesty wrote:
| Very interesting piece. Thanks for sharing!
| pera wrote:
| Few things are as _performative_ as venture capitalists aligning
| their politics with the upcoming government.
| rukuu001 wrote:
| An unusually bad essay.
|
| Yes, cancel culture is bad.
|
| But when an entire group of people (eg women, or non-white
| people) says 'this thing is a problem', maybe take them
| seriously?
|
| (Like pg would like to be taken seriously right now?)
|
| This is an essay against introspection, against discomfort (as
| much as discomfort intolerance is raised as a symptom of woke),
| and an argument for maintaining the status quo.
| acaloiar wrote:
| The real "mind virus" is the fragility of mind required for
| people to be so damn bothered that people unlike themselves
| exist. This essay is as much an example of that fragility as
| those who cannot find any merit in critiques of "wokeness's"
| loudest proponents. A world where those on the end of the
| political spectrum better understand each other is something
| worth working towards. This essay doesn't get us closer to that
| world, nor does lording one's perceived moral superiority over
| others. Maybe it's time to reset.
|
| A good portion of the comments here are people talking past each
| other, with seemingly no interest in mutual understanding. We've
| gotten so very lazy about disagreement. Its harder and more
| useful form involves conceding that your counterparty probably
| has a point, even if very small. And if you can't see it, you
| might not be trying.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Unfortunately he's going along with right-wing orthodoxy instead
| of seriously confronting modern internet cults. Graham proves
| himself to be a groupthinker, not an independent thinker.
|
| (The real tragedy of "woke" is how it undermines the left; how
| could you ever win an election if people who seem to travel with
| you tell 70% (white) or 50% (men) of people that they're
| intrinsically bad? Worse yet those "fellow travelers" will sit
| out the election because they think any real politicians is a
| "fascist" for one reason or another.)
|
| My son has two friends who I'll call B and C -- "wokeness" could
| be evoked in the case of B but you'll see it is a wrong mental
| model.
|
| I knew B from elementary school and I know he's a bit out of sync
| with other people, like myself and my son. Call him
| "neurodivergent" and leave it at that. I introduced B to TTRPGs
| which he enjoyed greatly at the time and is an ongoing interest
| for him. (Unlike my transsexual friend from college, neither I
| nor his mother ever heard him express anything noncongruent about
| his gender identity as a child.)
|
| My son met C in high school. He probably has a developmental
| problem too but I wont't DX it. B seemed a little depressed and
| withdrawn, C has always expressed hostility against people and
| institutions. C certainly has pathological narcissism and says
| that hard work is for suckers, his dad is a provost at an elite
| school. If he was seriously seeking a royal road he'd continue in
| the family business (where nepotism rules) but he hasn't talked
| to his dad in years, though, like B, he still lives at home. C
| jumped off the roof of his house one day to impress his little
| brother and broke his leg. His mom, who grew up in rural China
| and later got an MD valid in China but not here, thinks he is
| possessed by demons.
|
| B works part time. C doesn't work. Neither are in school.
|
| During the pandemic B was worked on by an "egg-hatcher" who
| helped B develop body dysmorphia. Last thanksgiving family plans
| fell through but we went to the community center in B's hamlet
| because we knew we'd get to meet up with B and his mom. (B uses a
| different pronoun and different name at work but doesn't mind if
| we use his old pronouns and name.) B told us all about the
| horrible side effects of the meds he is taking, and then got
| jumped on by a (seemingly mental ill) Trump supporter when I was
| coming out of the bathroom. B expresses a lot of hostility to the
| likes of J K Rowling because he's been told to.
|
| C encountered "blackpill" incels who also talked him into body
| dysmorphia. (Like the transgenderists they have a language of
| transformation through ideology, in this case based on a scene
| from _The Matrix_.) His height is average, but that 's not good
| enough. He stretches every day and wants to have surgery where
| they break his legs to extend them. He hasn't talked my with my
| son or myself since the time my son said what his real height was
| in an online chat. I had a 'Black Card' membership at Planet
| Fitness and made the offer to teach him how to lift weights, but
| he refused. Rumor has it, however. that he bought anabolic
| steroids online and injected them.
|
| People who see things through an ideological lens would see B as
| good and C as evil or maybe C as good and B as evil. I look at
| them and see similar signs and symptoms and if I had to DX it
| would be "lack of social connection and lack of meaning"; both
| acquired body dysmorphia through ideology, I've got no doubt
| about it and I see both as victims of internet cults.
|
| In Terry Prachett's _Hogfather_ professors at the Unseen
| University discover a principle of "conservation of belief" so
| that when the Hogfather (like Santa but comes on Dec 32, drives a
| sleigh pulled by pigs, ...) is assassinated the world becomes
| plagued by the Hair Loss Fairy and the God of Hangovers (the "Oh
| God!") I see transgenderism, inceldom, evangelicals who don't go
| to church, BLM enthusiasts who don't personally know any black
| people, people senselessly adding stripes to the rainbow flag
| (hmmm... people in those classes have always had trouble with
| being confused with others... In Iran they think gay people need
| trans surgery, Intersex people frequently express that they've
| been violated when they get the same surgery that helps
| transexual people feel whole, etc.) , anti-vax activists and
| people who are obsessively pro-vax just to oppose anti-vax people
| as being our own Hair Loss Fairy that comes out of traditional
| religions failing.
| hnlurker22 wrote:
| Since YC startups (culture) is the exact opposite of what PG is
| saying, this is just a political stance in words, nothing more.
| doccodo wrote:
| It's very telling that he gives Marxist-Leninism as an example of
| moral orthodoxy instead of the much more relevant Capitalist
| orthodoxy that exists in the U.S. which he viciously upholds.
| It's pretty clear that it's much more acceptable to rail against
| DEI, "wokeism", etc., than it is to suggest that a different
| economic system is possible in American society. There's very few
| people in power that can get away with suggesting that there can
| be something better than Capitalism, or even admitting that
| there's some problems that Capitalism just can't fix. Most of the
| progressives or "wokes" in power only go so far as suggesting
| refinements and guardrails for the current system. Meanwhile,
| roughly half our elected officials rabidly speak out against the
| "woke" with no consequences, and the media clearly props up the
| current system against all else.
|
| It's just so frustrating to see guys like Paul Graham pretend
| like they're somehow outside of or above "orthodoxy" and
| "ideology", to use their own terms. "Wokeism" is a religion, but
| somehow "anti-wokeism" isn't? My point isn't that all of what
| they label "wokeism" is good or that Capitalism is all bad, it's
| that there is a hypocrisy in their beliefs that belies their
| whole argument.
|
| Above all it's just embarrassing to see, and it kills me that
| they paint their obvious orthodoxy as heresy, when it's anything
| but.
| acyou wrote:
| Are we going to see our institutions flexibly re-align themselves
| basically every US election cycle? Or do the recent changes at
| Facebook and Amazon, and this essay, herald a long-term shift to
| the right in USA politics?
|
| Where individuals, institutions and society have to be
| flexible/whiplashed around in order to survive and thrive, it can
| be good from time to time, but it's not great for everyone to
| have too much such change on an ongoing basis.
|
| If we're talking about the origins of wokeness, I would tend to
| go back further and look at Christianity as a whole. Suggest
| Friedrich Nietzsche - Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a
| Philosophy of the Future, which states that the morality of the
| day is somewhat arbitrarily dictated by those currently in power,
| and you had better snap to it and conform, which I think is more
| or less what we're seeing here?
|
| Specifically, the idea of wokeness originates in the Christian
| conceptual understanding of pity, which is basically that we
| should sympathise with and help other people. Further, wokeness
| has in it that we don't accept people who work to benefit
| themselves and their cadres at the expense of society at large.
| Of course, this is ultimately incompatible with VC, which is why
| wokeness and tech/VC ultimately make an odd pairing, inevitably
| destined for a split, which we are now seeing.
| zug_zug wrote:
| Spending too much time in the richest, most tolerant counties in
| the country can make you forget that we still have colleges that
| won't admit gay students, or that many people still don't believe
| in interracial marriage.
|
| Yes it's a teeny tiny little bit of a shame that a college
| president had to step down for raising a fair academic question.
| It is not half as important as when a cop shoots a black person
| dead for dating with a white girl.
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| > we still have colleges that won't admit gay students, or that
| many people still don't believe in interracial marriage
|
| 1. Who cares? Those colleges are private entities and
| presumably this admissions discrimination means they cannot
| receive Federalor state funds. If admitting gay students goes
| against their religious beliefs, then the rest of us benefit
| from having the people they reject.
|
| 2. It is not up to us to tell other families who they can and
| can't marry, or what they can or can't think. Let the bigots be
| bigots in their bigoted bubble, as long as they don't hurt
| anyone outside it. (If their children wish to leave the bubble,
| we should protect and support them privately.)
|
| 3. A cop shooting a black person for dating a white girl is
| homicide, independent of anyone's beliefs.
| Seattle3503 wrote:
| The Identity Trap by Yascha Mounk does a really good job of
| tracing the history of "woke". In particular he does a good job
| of _not_ lumping woke in with all left ideas.
| billiam wrote:
| Wow, Paul Graham just kinda set the standard for cognitive
| dissonance on HN. In short, sins of elision, omission, and
| exaggeration in this post and elsewhere in his absurdly entitled
| world make it clear that he is himself the prig here.
| dwb wrote:
| > In other words, it's people being prigs about social justice.
| And that's the real problem -- the performativeness, not the
| social justice.
|
| No, in almost every usage I've seen it's people objecting to the
| actual social justice. There is a massive wave of reaction
| breaking right now. To posit that it's just (or mostly) about
| some annoying attitudes is absurd. This kind of strength of
| feeling you can only get from people feeling actually threatened
| - which is pretty pathetic when you pick out what the actual
| policies and demands of the accused "woke" are - very mild
| progressiveness. A desire to go a little way to redress the
| balance. It's a lot less than I'd favour!
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Really disappointing article, full of disingenuousness and
| strawmen and a few interesting points as well. For the record,
| while I'm on the progressive side of things, I certainly do not
| agree with all of the various viewpoints and practices ascribed
| to "wokeism."
|
| He seems close to misunderstanding a pivotal thing, but glosses
| over it: [Priggish] was not the original
| meaning of woke, but it's rarely used in the original
| sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the dominant one.
|
| He then moves on to spend hundreds of words talking about why
| wokeness is bad, never really recognizing that for most of its
| relatively short lifespan the modern incarnation of "woke" has
| been defined and used almost exclusively by _conservatives_ as
| sort of an amorphous blanket term for "various progressive ideas
| they dislike" and is not useful as a basis for any discussion or
| essay. Instead of going out into the world and
| quietly helping members of marginalized groups, the
| politically correct focused on getting people in trouble
| for using the wrong words to talk about them.
|
| This is a glaringly bad false dichotomy. Apparently we can talk
| about good things _or_ do good things, but not both?
|
| I mean, _I_ have certainly done both. There really isn 't a
| conflict there.
|
| Another, similar false dichotomy: The danger of
| these rules was not just that they created land mines
| for the unwary, but that their elaborateness made them
| an effective substitute for virtue.
|
| We can't have rules _and_ virtue?
|
| It's the kind of sentence that sounds good if you don't think
| about it -- because _of course_ doing good things is better than
| simply making rules -- but this is such an amateurish and false
| dichotomy.
|
| This is about as sensical as saying that we shouldn't have code
| review, or coding standards, we should just focus on writing code
| in our own personal little vision of what good code is. Yes we
| should write "good code" on an individual basis, and _yes_ we
| should (as a team working on a project together) have standards
| and reviews. If a particular team member is contributing zero
| code and doing nothing but toxic reviews, sure, that is a problem
| but that is a problem with that individual and not some kind of
| inherent paradox.
|
| Some things can only be effectively tackled with both individual
| effort _and_ community /systemic effort. If you feel that things
| like racism, sexism, etc _do not_ fall into that category...
| well, I strongly disagree, but I wish people would simply say
| that directly than ranting and raving about this bogeyman of
| modern "wokeness" that is -- and I cannot stress this enough --
| a mindbendingly nonspecific term. Talk ideals and policies.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| There are also some real zingers in his unexplored trains of
| thought here. He notes that "wokeness" in academia originated
| in the social sciences and not, say, mathematics or
| engineering. He then goes on to concoct some explanation based
| on folks from the Sixties getting into academia and not a far
| more obvious explanation: our modern understanding of the ills
| and boons of society originated from the sciences focused on
| studying society.
|
| (Sure, Paul, the physics department didn't come up with woke.
| They were too busy overlooking Richard Feynman hitting on every
| undergrad woman that came through his department).
|
| FWIW, I also saw political correctness "rise." In my
| experience, it rose in the computer science department
| discovering that when they adjusted their approach to incoming
| undergrad students based on observations from the social
| sciences that systemic sexism was bending the nature of their
| pre-undergrad education, the women performed better in the
| computer science undergrad curriculum. There's Paul's missing
| evidence from the "hard sciences."
| JohnBooty wrote:
| He notes that "wokeness" in academia originated in
| the social sciences and not, say, mathematics or
| engineering.
|
| Yeah, what's up with that? Is this supposed to be evidence
| for why (what he defines as) "wokeness" is bad? Ideas worth
| considering... can't come from the social sciences? Can they
| _only_ come from STEM fields? That is uh, certainly a
| viewpoint for him to have.
| a022311 wrote:
| I feel like this is the most neutral, correct take on "wokeness"
| I've ever read on the internet. Good job!
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| So now we have pg virtue-signalling his fealty to the other old
| rich white guys. Great. Just great.
|
| The only people who use the term "woke" are social conservatives,
| and those to their right. Everyone else talks about "justice" and
| "equality" and "awareness". The woke problem is a conservative
| problem.
| valicord wrote:
| > Should students and employees have to participate in woke
| indoctrination sessions in which they're required to answer
| questions about their beliefs to ensure compliance? No, because
| we wouldn't dream of catechizing people in this way about their
| religion.
|
| But a group prayer led by a school coach is, of course, totally
| fine.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kennedy_v._Bremerton_School_Di...
| wcfrobert wrote:
| Everyone less empathetic than me is a bigot.
|
| Everyone more empathetic than me is just virtue signaling.
| tines wrote:
| I think the _conditio sine qua non_ of whatever social movement
| PG is trying to describe here is that we have become, and will
| become more, a low-trust culture. Social circles are wider and
| shallower now than ever. If I can 't take the time to get to know
| a person, I can't assume good faith when they use some
| questionable word. It benefits me to impute the worst motive,
| because (1) it is much safer to avoid a false harm than to admit
| a false good, and (2) it brings me social credit.
|
| Instead of assuming that someone is well-meaning and requiring
| much evidence to refute that assumption, people are marked by
| small infractions, because the cognitive effort of the
| presumption of innocence cannot be applied on such a large scale
| and is not worth it to us. This is the mentality behind the
| "believe all women" principle: women are harmed more by letting a
| rapist free than by jailing an innocent man, and since we can't
| vet all the claims of sexual assault, better just lock them all
| up. A metaphor frequently given by proponents of that ideology is
| that men are like M&Ms. Would you eat an M&M from a bowl if you
| knew that a few were poisoned? If even 1 in 100,000 were
| poisoned, would you take the risk? No. Low trust. (I've never
| heard someone reply that women are not all benign either and yet
| people don't seem to apply the same logic to them.)
|
| You see the extremes of this in the politicians representing US
| political parties. Trump can say anything and supporters never
| waiver, because they know he's "just joking around" or whatever.
| Meanwhile a Democrat candidate can say something small askance
| with what seems to me like innocent intentions, and their career
| is over.
|
| This is also why the Democrats are so fractious internally,
| relative to the Republicans. Republicans default to trusting each
| other (not saying whether that's merited or not) while Democrats
| only make temporary uneasy alliances.
|
| Some people tire of this low-trust culture (because they haven't
| been burned by trust before) and are pushing back on it.
|
| In my opinion, the low-trust people are going to win eventually
| because the higher-trust people are more local and less internet-
| connected. Either society will collapse into many sub-societies,
| or else these sub-societies will dwindle until there's nothing
| left of them, and all that's left is The Culture.
| tzs wrote:
| > This is also why the Democrats are so fractious internally,
| relative to the Republicans. Republicans default to trusting
| each other (not saying whether that's merited or not) while
| Democrats only make temporary uneasy alliances
|
| The number of votes it took for Republicans to select a Speaker
| of the House and the effort that Speaker has had to
| subsequently undertake to keep that position says otherwise.
| tines wrote:
| > The number of votes it took for Republicans to select a
| Speaker of the House and the effort that Speaker has had to
| subsequently undertake to keep that position says otherwise.
|
| It's natural that the politicians selected by this group are
| going to be self-serving, unable to cooperate, etc. The
| fractiousness I'm describing is at the level of the voter,
| not the politician. See the 2024 presidential election for an
| example.
| obelos wrote:
| "Can you believe it? That colored boy wants me to call him
| 'mister!'"
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used
| in the original sense now.
|
| Graham is really skipping over some pretty significant whys and
| wherefores on how a term that dates back to, at least, 1923
| becomes a pejorative starting around the '80s. Perhaps it is
| worth considering in what publications and media it became a
| pejorative, and who would benefit from others thinking it should
| be one.
|
| While some folks who lived through the Sixties went into
| academia, others went on to own media empires. Those groups
| didn't have particularly aligned goals.
| xanderlewis wrote:
| > The woke sometimes claim that wokeness is simply treating
| people with respect. But if it were, that would be the only rule
| you'd have to remember, and this is comically far from being the
| case.
|
| This seems like a good argument. It's very clear that
| 'wokeness'/political correctness is more about fixating on syntax
| (the literal words used) over semantics (the intention of the
| speaker). But in my book, it's the intention that matters -- in
| fact I'd argue it's the only thing that matters. If you're
| choosing to wilfully misinterpret and be offended by something
| someone innocently said, that's completely on you. We shouldn't
| celebrate the act of taking offence, but at the same time we
| should all make an effort not to accidentally create it. Why are
| people who can do both seemingly so rare?
| gregwebs wrote:
| I admire PG's essays, but this one seems to give an origin theory
| about a complex societal issue without any evidence.
|
| My pet theory is is that liberalism won the battle with
| conservatism and achieved everything useful that it could with
| it's existing instruments. But then it kept looking for something
| more and went into wokeness with good intentions. With women's
| equality and gay marriage the movement was able to convince
| people and also create legislation. When going into equity and
| inclusiveness there isn't a legislative solution (or there are,
| but they don't do much to fix the root of the problem). And
| people are already convinced that it's good in theory. The only
| solution is to make an incredible effort to actually help the
| communities that are raising the disadvantaged- an incredibly
| challenging task. Instead they maintained the existing approach
| of convincing and cancellations and DEI policies (in place of
| legislation).
|
| I think the approach for liberalism to get back on track and
| achieve their goals is to do the hard work of helping
| disadvantaged children. If you want to make a difference, the Big
| Brothers Big Sisters program is a program that helps things at
| their root- improving the support structure of children in need.
| phibz wrote:
| I first heard the term from my ex-wife when she was involved with
| black politics in Chicago in 2014. At that time their definition
| was firmly in the "awareness of racial and social injustice". It
| was seemingly later twisted to mean hypocrisy or hyper political
| correctness. Redefining it seems to have nerfed any effect it
| once had.
| hyeonwho4 wrote:
| That is not incompatible with pg's definition, if "raising
| awarenesss" dominates "doing something about it".
| steego wrote:
| He said the word woke *described* the "awareness of racial
| and social injustice". He didn't say it was a mechanism for
| "raising awareness".
|
| Let me ask you this: How does one, in your mind, do
| "something about it?"
|
| PG's article focuses on "woke" as a kind of performative
| morality and you've gone out of your way to try an unify this
| original definition of "woke" with Paul's performative
| definition.
|
| Was "woke" being used performatively in the 1930's when black
| folk advised other black folk to "stay woke" when traveling
| in certain parts of the country that were hostile to their
| existence?
|
| When does the original definition start becoming incompatible
| with Paul's half-assed definition in your mind?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| "Prig" is in the eye of the beholder. What about when the "prigs"
| were right? I'm sure the Quakers were seen as "prigs" by the
| southern slaveholders/traders. The Quakers were early to the
| abolition party and their opposition to slavery was based on
| religious zeal which made them seem like "prigs" to the people in
| the South who's whole society and economy was built on slavery.
| But we now consider the Quakers were right and the slaveholders
| wrong. MLK was viewed as a "prig" by many southern whites for
| interfering in their racism. But MLK was right.
| tflinton wrote:
| I think the basis of his arguement is a prig is incentivized by
| calling out the moral failures of others to make themselves
| feel more virtuous.
|
| Where perhaps the quakers or MLK were doing it out of moral
| outrage.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > by calling out the moral failures of others to make
| themselves feel more virtuous.
|
| Isn't it impossible to determine the internal motivations of
| others? And even if they were doing it to make themselves
| feel more virtuous they can still be right. Or it's possible
| that there's a combination of both moral outrage and ending
| up feeling virtuous.
| surfingdino wrote:
| "Social justice" is a perversion of justice. Eastern Europe and
| other countries that tried communism used social justice as an
| excuse to eradicate middle and upper classes through mass
| murders, incarceration, confiscation of property, denial of
| access to education or higher-paying jobs, and promotion of lower
| classes to the levels of their incompetence.
| danielvaughn wrote:
| Focusing on the term "wokeness" is a bit silly. I've always liked
| to think of it ("it" being the wave of political thought that
| came into influence around 2013 or so) as the latest wave of the
| civil rights movement. I call it "social justice" since they
| often use that term, but of course that term has been around for
| decades as well. It doesn't matter what name you use, as long as
| we agree on the phenomenon we're describing.
|
| But really, you can trace it back further than the 60's, as far
| back as in the 1920's with C Wright Mills. He was a sociologist
| who essentially argued that science shouldn't pursue explanatory
| knowledge, but rather emancipatory knowledge. The idea was that
| science can't be some external objective thing apart from human
| political systems.
|
| As for why it didn't enter the national awareness until the last
| decade, I have no idea. But I think it has to do with the
| internet, that's my intuition.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| Paul Graham is old.
| corry wrote:
| I can't be the only one that sees "wokeness" and general
| political radicalization (on either side) as being explainable by
| the collapse of religion and nationality as the key sources of
| identity and group-inclusion.
|
| Political identities are modern-day religions, basically.
|
| I'm not saying it's better to be actually religious - this isn't
| some sob-story about how the decline of religiosity is some great
| evil. I'm just pointing out the parallel: that something that's
| consumed A LOT of human energy and attention has disappeared in 1
| generation leaving a huge vacuum of meaning for most people, and
| people are filling that vacuum with political identities.
|
| Doesn't this list work for both political movements and
| religions: shared moral frameworks, common enemies, a
| metaphysical value system, sense of belonging, set of virtues and
| sins, rigid orthodoxy, regular rituals (protests, boycotts, etc),
| transcendent societal goals, conflict-as-sacred-struggle, etc.
|
| Overly simplistic, maybe; but I think I'm not too far off.
| lux wrote:
| I don't disagree with a lot of what he says here, but I feel like
| too many people in Silicon Valley are hyper-fixated on the
| conformity and enforcement coming from the left, while ignoring
| and even stoking the flames of anger and conformity on the right.
| Particularly his points on news, because much of the news is now
| heavily skewed to the right.
|
| PG would do well to reflect similarly on the rise of the right
| wing equivalents and recognize that they're the ones actively
| stymying progress on many of the critical issues of our time.
| moskie wrote:
| Reading Paul Graham's musings on "wokeness" is a complete waste
| of time. Please find the words of other better informed people to
| read, who have an actual interest in addressing problems like
| racism and sexism.
|
| Also, for all his complaining about people being performative, he
| commits the sin himself. He is doing the dance conservative
| fascists want him to. Paul, do us all a favor, and just skip to
| the ending we all know you're heading for: fall in line with
| Trump, lock arms with your fellow oligarchs, and take obvious
| active measures to suppress any threats your wealth and power.
| h43z wrote:
| Still can't believe we all changed our branch names from master
| to main.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness, was bought by
| Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and he seems to have
| succeeded -- and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users
| the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without
| censoring either.
|
| There is nothing that better demonstrates how disconnected your
| average ivory tower silicon valley elite is than this sentence.
| You would have to exist in an entirely different reality to
| believe this is the case.
| battle-racket wrote:
| > Racism, for example, is a genuine problem. Not a problem on the
| scale that the woke believe it to be, but a genuine one.
|
| Breaking news: white man doesn't feel racism is that big of a
| problem.
| hhh1111 wrote:
| you try to dismiss him because of his race because you can't
| engage with his argument.
| tqi wrote:
| Cartoonish displays of "wokeness" are stupid and corrosive. But I
| would argue that people who are loudly "Anti-woke" could also be
| described as "self-righteously moralistic [people] who behave as
| if superior to others". Both sides are impenetrably convinced
| that they alone are the arbiters of what is "good" behavior. In
| fact, I would go as far as to say that the far ends of "Woke" and
| "Anti-woke" people have far more in common to each other than
| they are to people the middle.
|
| Ultimately, I think the problem is we separate ourselves along
| easy to define lines like left vs right, white vs non-white, bike
| vs car, and let the loudest assholes on either sides dictate
| terms.
| onetimeusename wrote:
| I think part of this is correct regarding the professors who
| started off as "radicals" or hippies in the 1960s but there is no
| mention of why the cultural revolution of the 1960s happened in
| here. Couldn't that be examined more closely?
|
| In my opinion, we have been undergoing a cultural clash for power
| at the top of society for decades between various groups. At one
| point in time this country was firmly in the hands of WASPs.
| Waves of immigrants arrived in cities who clashed with them.
| There were fights about who could get into the most powerful
| universities which was directly related to the struggle for power
| between the groups. Wokeness in the US, is in my opinion, a
| consequence of identity politics which we have had for some time.
| I think identity politics is probably more natural than not
| having it because we see it all over the planet. I think a lot of
| people have created a narrative that they are fighting against
| identity politics but in fact have just recreated it in different
| terms.
| jacobjjacob wrote:
| "An aggressively performative focus on social justice."
|
| Paul is giving the strawman definition (or, ironically, the PC
| definition) of "woke". It's a code word that can be anything the
| user doesn't like, and isn't anything they do like. It's used as
| a weapon along with its alias, DEI.
|
| But people aren't using it with that "performative" definition in
| practice. People are using it to label social justice topics that
| they don't agree with. So it's disingenuous to try and define it
| in a way that is much more narrow than its practical usage.
| djur wrote:
| Even Paul himself uses the word in a way that sure seems
| inconsistent with his definition:
|
| "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too
| far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been
| permanently damaged by it."
|
| Bud Light sent Dylan Mulvaney promotional cans of beer to
| celebrate the 1-year anniversary of her web series about her
| transition. Mulvaney had been a target of right-wing activists
| for some time, and those activists drove the boycott. This was
| just a particularly effective example of a long line of right-
| wing campaigns against companies that associate with trans
| celebrities. How does "woke" fit into this except from the
| perspective that "woke" just means being on one side of the
| culture war?
| aaaaon wrote:
| Mulvaney's "Days of Girlhood" series was the most horribly
| sexist portrayal of a man pretending to be a woman (or
| "girl", as he put it). He just acted out offensive
| stereotypes and claimed that this is what it is to be a
| woman.
|
| I'm glad there was a campaign against Bud Light endorsing
| this misogyny. It's just unfortunate that it was right-
| wingers doing this for right-wing reasons, and not everyone
| coming together against it because of how insulting it is to
| women.
| ajbt200128 wrote:
| > What does it mean now? [...] > An aggressively performative
| focus on social justice.
|
| sure yup. Performative social justice bad. Now lets continue
| reading and see what PG thinks is performative.
|
| > I saw political correctness arise. When I started college in
| 1982 it was not yet a thing. Female students might object if
| someone said something they considered sexist, but no one was
| getting reported for it.
|
| > There was at this time a great backlash against sexual
| harassment; the mid 1980s were the point when the definition of
| sexual harassment was expanded from explicit sexual advances to
| creating a "hostile environment."
|
| > In the first phase of political correctness there were really
| only three things people got accused of: sexism, racism, and
| homophobia
|
| > Another factor in the rise of wokeness was the Black Lives
| Matter movement, which started in 2013 when a white man was
| acquitted after killing a black teenager in Florida.
|
| > Similarly for the Me Too Movement, which took off in 2017 after
| the first news stories about Harvey Weinstein's history of raping
| women. It accelerated wokeness
|
| > In 2020 we saw the biggest accelerant of all, after a white
| police officer asphyxiated a black suspect on video. At this
| point the metaphorical fire became a literal one, as violent
| protests broke out across America.
|
| note: it's ok PG, you can say the cop murdered him. no one will
| cancel it for you (except maybe the right).
|
| Wow you're right PG, all of this IS performative, because none of
| it has actually helped anyone you know and respect. It's just
| helped women, POC, LGBT etc.
|
| TL;DR; PG like most billionaires hates when anyone like him is
| held accountable, would rather see humanity suffer than not be
| able to say whatever he wants.
| kieferbc wrote:
| As defined in a Florida lawsuit, woke is, "the belief there are
| systemic injustices in American society and the need to address
| them." I think that is generally true. I also agree with parts of
| what PG stated. More than anything, I think the term 'woke' as
| defined above has been twisted by both sides, and action is more
| important that talking.
| runlevel1 wrote:
| > The danger of these rules was not just that they created land
| mines for the unwary
|
| In real life, these "land mines" don't usually explode unless
| people think you're stepping on it intentionally.
|
| For instance, every time I've accidentally used the wrong pronoun
| for someone, I've gotten a polite correction, I make a mental
| note, and everyone moves on. It's just not a big deal.
|
| With a large enough audience, there will always be someone who
| assumes you've acted with ill intent. But if you know you've done
| it innocently, then you can just ignore them and move on.
|
| Intent matters. Those performative things communicate your intent
| to make others feel welcome and included. So if you fly off the
| handle at a reasonable request that would make a group of people
| feel more included, you've communicated your intent accordingly.
|
| Occasionally, there are some purely performative things that
| don't actually make anyone feel more included. Personally, I
| think it's reasonable to ask that question if you're genuinely
| interested in finding the answer. However, purely performative
| things tend to disappear in time; so sometimes the most pragmatic
| response is to just go with the flow and see where things land.
| JFingleton wrote:
| > In real life, these "land mines" don't usually explode unless
| people think you're stepping on it intentionally.
|
| > For instance, every time I've accidentally used the wrong
| pronoun for someone, I've gotten a polite correction, I make a
| mental note, and everyone moves on. It's just not a big deal.
|
| Isn't that the issue though? I healthy society should be able
| to challenge, object and argue (within reason), without losing
| jobs or being exiled?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| If you go to work and deliberately call "Bob" by the wrong
| name "Joe" all the time, and it upsets them and they ask you
| to stop, you'll get fired eventually if you continue.
| JFingleton wrote:
| ...but he really looks like a "Joe"! :D
|
| I did say "within reason"... which I realise is doing a lot
| of heavy lifting.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| If someone is named Jimmy and you keep referring to him as
| Jimbo despite them politely asking you not to, what do you
| think will happen?
| pronounnoun wrote:
| Pronouns aren't names. Social conventions around the two,
| not to mention their linguistic functions, are completely
| different. To presuppose that the one should be treated
| like the other is to assume your conclusion. One can agree
| that people have a right to be called by the name of their
| choice, without agreeing that everyone must change the
| conventions around an entire part of speech. That is a huge
| ask and a heavy lift, much heavier than asking people to
| remember someone's name or not to use a specific offensive
| word.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It's not a huge ask or heavy lift.
| BoingBoomTschak wrote:
| Like stepping on an idol, no big deal.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fumi-e
| shadowgovt wrote:
| I think people may disagree on what "within reason" means.
| There are some red lines established by Title VII that cause
| "just asking questions" to cross into "hostile work
| environment." Is it reasonable to keep asking those
| questions?
|
| Reasonable people can disagree on _that_ question, but the
| law will protect a company that fires an individual for
| crossing that line while the rest of society is arguing over
| where the line should be. That 's just how law works in
| general.
| diggan wrote:
| > Isn't that the issue though? I healthy society should be
| able to challenge, object and argue (within reason), without
| losing jobs or being exiled?
|
| When you're in parliamentary/house sessions (or whatever your
| democracy/society/state has), sure, argue and object to
| everything. There you have what Americans are so crazy about,
| "Freedom of Speech" and all that.
|
| But outside of that, in private life, most people would find
| you very cumbersome to deal with if you challenge, object or
| argue with things that people state about themselves. If I
| say I'm 32 years old and you try to argue against me, I'll
| eventually just ignore and shun you, because who has the time
| to deal with such inconsequential stuff?
| zer8k wrote:
| [flagged]
| fzeroracer wrote:
| > This type of policing is another iteration of doublespeak
| that we were warned about in 1984. Policing the language
| polices thoughts. It harms communication effectiveness. It
| makes it harder.
|
| Jesus, it's really not that hard. I work full remote and I
| just ask people what they prefer. I'm not in office and a lot
| of people aren't on camera and it's a bad idea to generally
| assume shit based on their name anyways. If I forget I
| apologize and we move on.
|
| I have literally never encountered any issues in my long
| career of working with people because I don't feel a need to
| fill my head with hot air and make a big deal about it.
| int_19h wrote:
| The weirdest thing that I've run into wrt pronouns is when
| people object to the use of gender-neutral pronouns as
| "misgendering" - e.g. a person insists that you must not use
| "they" to refer to them but rather their preferred gendered
| pronoun, and if you don't, then that is "erasing their
| identity".
|
| The argument that's usually made for this is that if
| someone's referred to as "they" while other people around
| them are "he" or "she", this makes them feel excluded etc.
| But if so, then using "they" uniformly would have been
| acceptable, and yet the same people insist that it is not.
| Jarwain wrote:
| In cases of ambiguous gender presentation, they is common and
| accepted.
|
| The idea is that yeah typically your pronouns should line up
| with your appearance or presentation, but sometimes it's a
| bit ambiguous. I've had people call me "ma'am" on the phone
| or in drive throughs because my voice tends higher. Or
| because I have long hair and from behind it tends to look
| feminine. It bugged me when I was younger and less used to
| it, at this point I don't really care. But I do appreciate it
| when people ask.
|
| When it comes to common terms, they're usually pretty
| whatever. I've been doing a lot of work in a protocol where
| original terms were "master" and "slave", and while I don't
| really care reading it in docs I personally feel
| uncomfortable speaking in those terms because my brain always
| brings up the connotations. Especially when the pattern is
| just as effectively described with Client/Server.
|
| My goal, ultimately, is just to keep the vibes positive and
| help people feel welcome and included and seen. Some
| reasonable changes to patterns of speech to support that
| isn't that crazy to me. It's no different than code switching
| when in a different country, or just talking to different
| groups in general.
| Jensson wrote:
| > But if you know you've done it innocently, then you can just
| ignore them and move on.
|
| For sensitive people that isn't really an option, it just
| causes endless stress.
| boplicity wrote:
| I think what PGs article misses, pretty much completely, is a
| more accurate definition of the work _woke_ , which is:
|
| >A word used to label another's political beliefs and activism
| as incorrect and foolish, particularly if that person is seen
| as "left leaning" or "progressive."
|
| In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean "you're
| an idiot."
|
| This is a travesty, really, because its use erases any chance
| to have an honest dialogue about the topics and behaviors being
| labelled as "woke."
|
| For example, people could instead say: "I disagree with X
| behavior, and here's why." Instead, people say: "look at that
| woke idiot." (And really, this is not an exaggeration.)
|
| The _normal_ behavior you describe, of people pointing things
| out, with others ' responding in kind, has little to do with
| the common usage of the word "woke," which has simply become a
| form of name-calling.
|
| And it _is_ unfortunate, because there is much to criticize
| about activists on the left, but name calling is in no way
| helpful, and instead, drives further reductive discourse.
| tines wrote:
| > In other words, it's common usage has devolved to mean
| "you're an idiot."
|
| So liberals call conservative idiots "woke"? I think people
| have lost the plot here in trying to define this word.
| dynamite-ready wrote:
| This is it.
|
| Well organised and destructive conservatives across much of
| the western world, have conspired successfully to nullify the
| positive effect of a word once used to elide wide ranging
| ideas and discussions on the subject of social justice.
|
| This is social media at it's most galling.
|
| Though alongside that, we now have a wider appreciation of a
| long list historical crimes, and the longstanding effect of
| those transgressions.
|
| In that sense, we have all become 'woke'.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| oh no
| s1110 wrote:
| This guy thesauruses!
| shitter wrote:
| As a minority in the US, I experienced little to no overt racism
| from 2014 to the present, following years of derogatory comments
| and unsolicited "jokes" about my ethnicity from people who
| weren't fundamentally racist but still thought it was OK to say
| those things. I attribute this change directly to the rise of
| wokeness (read: awareness) around 2015 and thus have a soft spot
| in my heart for it, even if some of its excesses over the years
| have made me roll my eyes.
| submeta wrote:
| There's a globally shared movement opposing anything the left
| considers progress--for minorities, the environment, a shift away
| from fossil fuels, animal rights, fairness, and other ethical
| causes. This opposition dismissively labels such efforts as
| "wokeness." From the US to Germany, from Orban to Erdogan, you
| see this trend everywhere.
|
| It's largely driven by men who feel their way of life is under
| threat. They want to continue as they always have: eating giant
| tomahawk steaks, driving oversized SUVs, denying climate change,
| and being offended by the existence of gay people. These are the
| same individuals who empower fascists--whether in the US,
| Germany, Argentina, or Italy.
|
| The world seems to have forgotten the lessons and the misery of
| the Second World War.
| ParetoOptimal wrote:
| > Twitter, which was arguably the hub of wokeness, was bought by
| Elon Musk in order to neutralize it, and he seems to have
| succeeded -- and not, incidentally, by censoring left-wing users
| the way Twitter used to censor right-wing ones, but without
| censoring either.
|
| You mean how twitter is censoring users who use "cracker" but not
| those who use the N-word.
| leftcenterright wrote:
| is this just me or this post also seems to be indicating some
| form of "moral superiority" and bias in the author's thinking?
|
| To me it seems like Musk's twitter takoever has done more than
| just "neutralize" the wokeness of twitter. It has amplified
| factless-ness and fake claims beyond proportion.
|
| https://www.poynter.org/fact-checking/2024/how-elon-musk-twi...
| moskie wrote:
| Having too much money is brain poison.
| segasaturn wrote:
| Oh god why is pg even writing about this? Why does every aging,
| decrepit Silicon Valley oligarch think the world needs to hear
| their opinion on political correctness? It's all becoming too
| much. Please buy a diary and write your important thoughts there.
| bachmeier wrote:
| You can tell who a person does and doesn't talk with when reading
| something like this. To write an essay of this length, on this
| topic, and not bring up (at a minimum) Jerry Falwell and the
| Moral Majority suggests you shouldn't be writing about it.
|
| I was a college student in the 1990s. Not only that, I was a
| member and even leader of evangelical Christian groups in
| college. Outrage, us versus them, claims of being persecuted, and
| imposing standards of morality on others was the reason those
| groups existed. The bigger the fight you started, the better.
|
| This is like writing an essay criticizing WalMart for paying low
| wages when every competing business pays the same or lower wages.
| Not false, but definitely not the whole truth, and obviously
| misleading.
| jasonlotito wrote:
| An incredibly ignorant article from someone who clearly has no
| concept or understanding of the topic being discussed. He defines
| wokeness from the perspective of those who are anti-woke.
| Remember, Elden Ring is a woke video game.
|
| "Whenever anyone tries to ban saying something that we'd
| previously been able to say, our initial assumption should be
| that they're wrong."
|
| No one was prevented from saying anything. People just decided
| they didn't need to listen to it.
|
| The reality is, PG is just writing this now because a new
| administration is coming in, and he wants to play nice with a
| felon. No morals to stand on, only money. Ethics be damned, I'll
| sell my soul and kill the children for a dollar. Sad state of
| affairs.
| Detrytus wrote:
| This post feels like Paul Graham is another billionaire(or multi-
| milionaire, whatever) to confess his past sins in attempt to win
| a seat in Trump's administration....
| djur wrote:
| In this article, Graham claims the following:
|
| "Consumers have emphatically rejected brands that ventured too
| far into wokeness. The Bud Light brand may have been permanently
| damaged by it."
|
| Bud Light was boycotted because they did a promotion with a minor
| trans celebrity. What is "woke" about that? It seems to me that
| what happened here is that Bud Light was punished for heresy,
| just from a different direction than Graham is choosing to
| condemn.
| chrisjj wrote:
| > I happened to be running a forum from 2007 to 2014 > our users
| were about three times more likely to upvote something if it
| outraged them.
|
| I see how upvotes were detected. But outrage?
| MathMonkeyMan wrote:
| It's a well written piece. Early on, though, this caught my
| attention:
|
| > As for where political correctness began, if you think about
| it, you probably already know the answer. Did it begin outside
| universities and spread to them from this external source?
| Obviously not; it has always been most extreme in universities.
| So where in universities did it begin? Did it begin in math, or
| the hard sciences, or engineering, and spread from there to the
| humanities and social sciences? Those are amusing images, but no,
| obviously it began in the humanities and social sciences.
|
| He's setting up the assertion "political correctness began in
| university social science departments." He tries to make it look
| like the conclusion is an inevitable result of reason, but really
| it's just an assertion. I dislike this rhetorical technique.
|
| His assertion is probably correct.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Yes, that paragraph is patronising and cocky.
| glangdale wrote:
| It's magnificently Paul Graham that he wrote some incredibly long
| essay called "The Origins Of Wokeness" without ever discussing,
| the origins of wokeness. Whatever you think about the current
| situation of "wokeness", the fact that pg manages to never once
| mention the origin of the term, going back to Marcus Garvey and
| Leadbelly, speaks to pg's monumental intellectual incuriosity.
| ck2 wrote:
| "woke" is believing and wanting to do the right thing before the
| majority see it as moral and correct
|
| ie. Slavery abolitionists would have been harassed as "woke" if
| the word had existed then
|
| It's that simple.
|
| People just REALLY don't like being told what they are doing is
| wrong and that they should be more enlightened and change, change
| is the real showstopper.
|
| So they've given "woke" a toxic treatment.
|
| The real test is if "woke" costs someone nothing and yet they
| still refuse.
| wargames wrote:
| I have no idea why this was shared on Hacker News (might simply
| be the Paul Graham connection), but it was one of the best, well-
| written, and researched articles I've read in years!
| Upvoter33 wrote:
| I can't tell if this comment is serious
| antgonzales wrote:
| Whole article on the word "woke" and no references to Erykah
| Badu. I don't think he knows what the word means.
| j_crick wrote:
| Rewriting history was never more fun!
| drawkward wrote:
| >Much as they tried to pretend there was no conflict between
| diversity and quality. But you can't simultaneously optimize for
| two things that aren't identical. What diversity actually means,
| judging from the way the term is used, is proportional
| representation, and unless you're selecting a group whose purpose
| is to be representative, like poll respondents, optimizing for
| proportional representation has to come at the expense of
| quality. This is not because of anything about representation;
| it's the nature of optimization; optimizing for x has to come at
| the expense of y unless x and y are identical.
|
| Eh, if x and y are correlated, you can optimize for x to a point
| and still get y gains.
| novemp wrote:
| An Internet rails against political correctness, forgetting that
| it's not 1996 anymore. Some Hackernews decry the woke mob. No
| technology is discussed.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| woke wasn't bad in the beginning, but it became more powerful
| than needed and that power was abused. When you get people to
| rename universities and streets you grew up intimately with, it's
| very annoying.
| peppertree wrote:
| If it takes a felon winning an election for you to come out and
| write this then you are a coward. Where were these deep thoughts
| when BLM was blocking public roads and emergency services. I'm
| impartial to both sides simply making an observation.
| nirava wrote:
| As an extreme outsider (and mostly emotionally uninvested) to
| this whole scene, and having read a few of the most popular
| articles, I've always taken Paul Graham to be an intelligent and
| articulate person. This article is has made me really reevaluate
| my judgement.
|
| I'm open to thinking about and discussing the points he is
| raising, but his arguments and the presentation feel weird and
| flimsy. Lots of anecdata, cherry-picked history, bad arguments
| propped up by debatable ideas presented as facts. And weird,
| almost sociopathic lack of empathy (eg: the 2020 "a white police
| officer asphyxiated a black suspect on video" event)?
|
| I mean, sure aggressive policing of speech and performance in
| social media is somewhat dumb, but any normal mind should be able
| to look behind the overreaction and realise that the underlying
| issues raised are valid and pressing.
|
| Is article is just a performance piece in preparation for the
| incoming regime?
| gkoz wrote:
| So the society should pay attention and stamp out whatever new
| fad the students got up to? Never mind the concerted well-
| financed efforts to smear and destroy truth, reason, democracy,
| pretty much any values there are?
|
| At the dawn of Project 2025 let us think how to stop the woke the
| next time?
| thrance wrote:
| Read this and understand one thing, you being anti-woke is not
| fighting the elite, fighting a cabal of anti-freedom leftists.
|
| You are sided with the billionaires, politicians and justices of
| the Supreme Court that hold virtually _all_ the power in this
| country. You are on the side of Putin and the Iranian regime,
| both calling out "western degeneracy".
|
| "Wokeness" is nothing but a scarecrow used to discredit any and
| all progressive ideas. In the name of "anti-wokeness" women are
| dying of complications, giving birth to the child of their
| rapists. LGBT people have to hide in the closet, from fear of
| repercussions to _being who they are_ , enduring massive
| psychological pain.
|
| As a remedy, I would like you to hold _one_ conversation with a
| trans guy /girl, hear them complain about the harassment they
| receive almost daily, about how difficult it was to have anyone
| recognize their illness and receive treatment, and realize that
| they are simply trying to live a life in this messed up world,
| like you and me.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > This was not the original meaning of woke, but it's rarely used
| in the original sense now. Now the pejorative sense is the
| dominant one. What does it mean now? I've often been asked to
| define both wokeness and political correctness by people who
| think they're meaningless labels, so I will. They both have the
| same definition:
|
| > An aggressively performative focus on social justice.
|
| This sounds quite wrong to me. The people who use "woke"
| pejoratively don't limit their use to _aggressively performative
| focus_ on social justice. They actively oppose the specific
| stances on social justice themselves, regardless of how
| aggressive or performative they think the advocates are.
| gigatexal wrote:
| I sure do love VCs pontificating on life like they live the same
| day-to-day like the rest of us wage-slaves.
|
| the playbook of lever up, risk it all, sell out, make billions,
| and then lecture people on how society should be is hilarious.
| Why should we listen? Because you have a B next your net worth?
| okay hah hard pass.
| 63 wrote:
| Sorry, Dang, that you have to deal with this. I definitely don't
| envy you. If this were written by anyone else I'm not sure it
| would make it to the front page.
|
| That being said, if we're here, we're here. Paul Graham is
| defining wokeness as a form of performative moral superiority, so
| let's use that definition here. I think we can all agree that
| performance moral superiority is at the very least annoying, so
| wokeness sounds pretty bad and we should try to avoid it. So this
| leaves me very curious as to examples. Graham unhelpfully gives
| very few specific examples, but one he does give is the Bud Light
| controversy. This one is particularly interesting to me because
| I'm not sure that Bud Light ever did anything particularly
| priggish. As I understand it, all they did was sponsor a social
| media influencer who happened to be transgender and suddenly half
| of the country lost their minds? Mulvanney's transgender identity
| had nothing to do with her Bud Light advertisement. I cannot see
| any priggishness here. No one made any statements about how
| anyone else should speak or act, no one was removed from any
| position of power. But the right was outraged by this and Graham
| refers to it as wokeness despite it not matching his definition.
| I'll put the subtext away and just say what I'm thinking. I think
| Graham's wokeness is real and legitimately annoying. But I don't
| believe it's anywhere near the scale of problem he's claiming it
| is and most importantly I think he's using it as a sort of effigy
| for underlying leftist ideas of inclusion and diversity. Graham
| makes wokeness out to be just about moral pricks but not the
| underlying ideas, but then classifies the protests after George
| Floyd's death as wokeness. Similarly to the Bud Light example, I
| see no performance there. I think it's hard to argue that
| protests and riots are purely performative and not real actions
| designed to make change. So to me, as a reader, it feels like
| Graham is masking his distaste for liberal ideology behind an
| obviously agreeable distaste of prigs. I don't necessarily think
| he's even doing this consciously and I think he's projecting the
| frustration from threat he sees to his power by liberal ideology
| towards this particular target. I know the feeling. This post has
| been long enough but I want to at least mention that this is how
| I feel about a lot of propaganda (from every side, mind you).
| People use real problems as stand-ins for things they can't talk
| about and get unreasonably upset at what's on the surface, not a
| big problem. It's important to read critically and pay attention
| to your own feelings and the logic of the arguments you're
| reading, because at least for me, it's very easy to be
| manipulated into believing something that's nonsensical or
| inconsistent with your values.
| stanleykm wrote:
| Cant imagine a better person than Paul Graham to give us the
| history of the origins of the struggles various underprivileged
| groups have had over the recent decades.
|
| Anyway the conservative reaction to "wokeness" (or "wokism" if
| youre an annoying european conservative) is way more annoying
| than "wokeness" ever was. And as far as I can tell its just them
| going "I am annoyed by these people so I am going to be a huge
| baby"
|
| Like theres no material impact to them here. How much can a DEI
| team possibly cost? It's just babies being babies.
|
| Actually I'm going to take that back. There is a material impact
| to them but it is that they risk losing out by not being in Trump
| & friends good books. In that case Paul's rant is not only wrong
| but it is hypocritical because this is just as performative! If
| not more! The billionaires are already the most privileged group!
| rayiner wrote:
| I have no respect for the people like Graham who are only voicing
| their objections now that the election results provide cover.
| arghandugh wrote:
| Ohhhh, he's _genuinely_ stupid. Got it.
| throwaway_2494 wrote:
| Summary: Rich white guy complains that it's too much effort to
| figure out what we're supposed to call 'coloured people' these
| days. It reads like the lament of a sore winner who has been
| forced to think of other's feelings against his will.
|
| And all of this is couched in a pseudo-histororical style that
| perhaps the author hopes will shield it from being read as an
| 'emotional' argument.
|
| And you know what's the worst thing? We live in a conservative
| world. They set the rules of the game, the draw the chalk
| outlines of the playing field, they own the ball the stadium and
| the referees.
|
| And now they tell us we have to be silent when they rough us up
| too?
| Kye wrote:
| Used to be we just called people who went overboard promoting
| their beliefs assholes, or zealots, or ideologues. So many
| perfectly descriptive words. You'll never want for a synonym to
| avoid excess repetition.
|
| Why take a perfectly good, specific, and useful word like woke
| and wrap it up in all this?
| ramon156 wrote:
| Would this have gotten front page if it wasn't pg? Because I
| think I know the answer to that.
| kaimac wrote:
| sad to see this poor billionaire being Cancelled in this thread
| for simply sharing his Beliefs !
| hckrnrd wrote:
| So if one takes PG seriously, it's ludicrous for him to
| unequivocally say "On October 11, 2020 the New York Times
| announced that "The paper is in the midst of an evolution from
| the stodgy paper of record into a juicy collection of great
| narratives.", but then in the footnotes backtrack and say "It's
| quite possible no senior editor even approved it (the quote in
| question)."
|
| Making such an absurd claim brings into question everything
| written on a subject he clearly knows nothing about.
| notepad0x90 wrote:
| If anyone complains about "woke" or "DEI" it is safe to assume
| they're a racist, just as with paulg.
|
| See, the thing is, @paulg does understand that there is a
| difference between "prigness" as he put it and the original term
| of "woke" which in no way means political correctness or some
| culture war term. Matter of fact, the only people I see use it
| are racists, as a dogwhistle. outside of rare "liberal arts"
| academics on twitter, you don't see anyone use the term "woke" to
| mean politically correct or anti-racism. Woke was a term black
| people used to to mean raising awareness to a racially
| complicated past, as in being "awoke", and even then it is
| academics not every day people that used the term.
|
| It has been hijacked as a dogwhistle, with the purpose of
| propagating racist agenda.
|
| Same with "DEI", you all know why tech CEO's are rolling it back
| right? they all were summoned by trump who instructed them to
| roll it back. and he did that because he and his backers have a
| racist agenda. of course "DEI" is performative b.s. to the most
| part, but it did help raise awareness to racial issues in the
| work place. It forced saying the quite part aloud. Racists also
| hijacked the term to essentially mean the "n-word". I recall with
| the crowdstrike outage, racists were using it very obviously to
| attack minorities as the cause (although that is a view divorced
| from reality in that case).
|
| Whether it comes to "return to office" or now this, I keep
| meaning to afford @paulg the benefit of doubt. Perhaps he is just
| that disconnected from the non-rich world? but he and his ilk are
| too smart, and I otherwise respect them and their acheivements
| too much for them to be so ignorant.
|
| This is @paulg jumping on the bandwagon and kissing trump's ring.
| Perhaps he is not a racist at heart, but he certainly is a racist
| by action, and action is all that matters.
|
| Dear tech CEO's: May your cowardice never be forgotten and may
| you be crushed along with trump and share in his downfall as you
| have decided to lie in his bed. You lie with dogs, you wake up
| with fleas.
|
| Understand that the only scenario where the world forgets your
| cowardice is if trump/gop succeed in installing a dictator that
| will rule America for decades.
|
| HN: I'm disappointed in all of you on staying silent or afraid to
| speak up to these people. Who are we without principles? These
| CEOs and founders are nothing without your support. They need
| you, not the other way around.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-01-13 23:01 UTC)