Having too much money is brain poison.
The Origins of Wokeness
521–530 of 1001 posts
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#522> 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 th…
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.
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)
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#523Still can't believe we all changed our branch names from master to main.
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Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#524> 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…
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Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#525This 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?
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.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#526Oh 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.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#527I 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…
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.
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.
Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#528> 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…
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Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#529> 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…
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Re: The Origins of Wokeness
#530You 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.