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.
The Origins of Wokeness
261–270 of 1001 posts
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#262> The number of true things we can't say should not increase. If it does, something is wrong. Word.
This presumes a high, perhaps delusional, level of faith in the public speaking space to determine what is "true."
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#263Are there viable alternatives to HN? I'm pretty sick of PG and Altman's influence. They aren't good people.
Lobste.rs
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#264And there I was, reading a comment earlier today about how HN is better than the other places because it prefers technical articles over "politics".
If you want technical articles with less politics, try the invite-only red site.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#265Is 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?
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#266I 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…
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).
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#267I 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…
> 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 str…
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.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#268This 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?
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#269This 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.
In the US statistically speaking a minority is much more likely to be killed by another minority than a "white" American.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#270> 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.