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If you think Microsoft wont turn their back and get on the ban/censorship train like any other company I believe that would be a mistake. They will have some "

If you think Microsoft wont turn their back and get on the ban/censorship train like any other company I believe that would be a mistake. They will have some "woke" employees and journalists grill the executives and then they will cave to mob rule just like the rest.

villasv 6y ago
> they will cave to mob rule just like the rest Would they? Microsoft is still serving ICE, despite all the "grilling".
kibwen 6y ago
Is hand-wringing over "woke" bogeymen the next evolution of grousing unironically about "SJWs"?
- gfodor 6y ago
  I highly advise you write down somewhere what sort of event it would take for you to change your belief that this is nothing to be concerned about. Then, at least do a cursory check to see if such an event has occurred already, it may well have. https://mobile.twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1354194374167560194 https://mobile.twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1354194374...
  - kibwen 6y ago
    The first thing would be for someone to actually define "woke", as opposed to slinging it around as a conveniently-nebulous catch-all to describe people they're opposed to (see also "liberal" and "conservative"). What is the woke manifesto? If you have something to say, then please just say it without couching it behind vague terms and "you can connect the dots yourself" conspiratorial thinking.
    - pavlov 6y ago
      The American right has spent the past 35 years inventing scary new names for the same nebulous concept of a Marxist horde threatening to prevent them from speaking honestly. It’s been known as “political correctness”, “social justice warriors”, “wokeness” and certainly a bunch of other names. The fundamental premise doesn’t change because it’s rooted in some deeper fear.
      - dane-pgp 6y ago
        Do you think that no one has ever unironically used "politically correct", "social justice warrior", or "woke" to describe themselves or their opinions? I'm not saying that the response to it isn't rooted in some deeper fear, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon they are afraid of doesn't exist.
        pavlov 6y ago
        Of course it exists, but for decades it's been cast into a mold that pattern-matches a longstanding reactionary anxiety. Just like "cosmopolitan" is a neutral/positive adjective by its dictionary definition, but has a very negative connotation in certain right-wing and/or anti-Semite circles.
        MereInterest 6y ago
        My first exposure to the term "social justice" was several years ago, when a family member began working with local jails and businesses, personally visiting and establishing relationships with inmates, and working to help reduce recidivism by arranging jobs for former inmates. I have never heard the addendum "warrior" added as a self-description, and have only ever heard it applied as a term of mockery from the right.
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        > I have never heard the addendum "warrior" added as a self-description, and have only ever heard it applied as a term of mockery from the right. I'm reluctant to name specific individuals, but there are people who embrace the "SJW" term for themselves. For example, the flair next to the username of this semi-famous developer[0] is a self-description that he is known for.[1] Perhaps you could argue that he is being ironic, but it is a self-description and he certainly doesn't mean to mock people who identify that way. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2fddvg/im_matthew_garrett_kernel_developer_firmware/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2fddvg/im_matthew_ga... [1] https://ostatic.com/blog/matthew-garrett-quits-kernel-to-do-his-own https://ostatic.com/blog/matthew-garrett-quits-kernel-to-do-...
    - ralusek 6y ago
      The illiberal left. Liberals believe in universality under the law, free speech, individualism, color-blindness, markets, equality of opportunity, rule of law. The illiberal left, whatever you want to call them, are precisely the opposite. They believe in contextual application of the law, faction and outcomes-based speech tolerance, racial/gender/religious collectivism, and therefore racial consciousness, find markets to be inherently exploitative, determine equality/equity in accordance with population outcomes, and tailor systems around producing equitable collective outcomes, and believe in designing systems that are less principled in their means so much as they are pragmatic in pursuit of their ends. As a liberal myself, I find this faction of the left (AOC/Robin Diangelo/Ibram X. Kendi/Ilhan Omar etc) to be the furthest political faction from my own.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        The thesis of the illiberal left isn't that universality under the law shouldn't exist, the free speech shouldn't exist, that individualism shouldn't exist, that color-blindness shouldn't exist, that equality of opportunity shouldn't exist, or anything else. The thesis is that those things don't exist in the real world. And it goes further than that, by saying that those things cannot exist in our society unless major changes happen. But the goal of abandoning liberalism is not actually to abandon those things, but to actually really realize them. The thesis is that our current systems are not principled either in their means or their ends. And it is true. Free speech is proportional to your means to challenge threats to your livelihood. Rule of law, universality under the law, equality of opportunity, simply do not exist - depending mainly on your socio-economic status but also on other axes such as racial perception of the individual by society, and so on. Equally, the thesis isn't that we shouldn't have color-blindness, simply that the current social and material reality makes this impossible. As a result of this, attempts/pretensions at color-blindness simply make the problem worse. If you didn't notice, the conclusion of the lefitst project after gender equality became progressive weakening and then almost abolition of gender - and I mean this in the strictest sociological sense of gender as the perception of a set of social attributes related to sex. The exact same set of theories are applied to race, before racial abolition there must be a realization of the existence of racial identity (which is indeed the definition of race in the leftist sense - racial identity is completely orthogonal to traits and genetics, it is indeed a completely cultural and social phenomenon and process), then true racial equality, then essentially complete racial abolition. Systems that actually provide real equality of opportunity will always provide actually equitable collective outcomes on the average. Equally, the leftist opposition is not to markets themselves. The leftist opposition is to our current set of property relations and to the relationships of productions. Attempts to change those when the time is not opportune have been disastrous, so the aim is to compensate and slowly work towards actually fixing them using state intervention that ancillary limit the freedom of the free market. But there is no inherent opposition to markets at all. This worldview is only a few decades younger than classical liberalism itself, and started with the disappointed third estate of the French Revolution. Put simply, the thesis is that classical liberalism failed to achieve its promises of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and that making good on those promises requires more careful and less idealistic theories of society and social change than the idealist ones of classical liberalism. I just thought you would enjoy not arguing against strawmen.
    - gfodor 6y ago
      I'll define it to be anyone who either explicitly or implicitly buys into the core elements of the doctrine slash religion of pseudo-postmodern Theory. One of the common patterns of this is the assumption that guilt-by-extra-vague-association (such as having a Parler account) or silence-is-complicity are reasonable ways to motivate extra-judicial justice against people, such as getting them fired, as was done here. These are fundamentally illiberal philosophies, both in their content and their explicit rejection of liberalism as a force for good in society. I wasn't couching what I was saying in any way. I was saying that if you do not think the kinds of behavior we are seeing where people's lives are being ruined by mob justice are anything other than "bogeymen", you ought to write down where the line is for you to honestly reconsider your position. In any situation where society slips slowly into madness, a lack of self-recognition where ones breaking points are contributes greatly to that slide.
      - oneeyedpigeon 6y ago
        > if you do not think the kinds of behavior we are seeing where people's lives are being ruined by mob justice are anything other than "bogeymen" That's not how I took their response at all. I believe they were specifically picking up your derogatory use of the term "woke". If you meant "illiberal", why not use that term? It's far less ambiguous and less loaded.
        gfodor 6y ago
        Check the author of the comment you are referring to, it's not me. For what it's worth, I do not use the term "woke" for the reason you mentioned, but if someone asks what definition I would apply to it if I had to (as I was here) what I wrote is my answer.
  - simias 6y ago
    Oh no, poor literary agent caught posting on Gab, a far right white supremacist website, and losing her job. Thoughts and prayers. More seriously if you think that's a problem IMO the solution is to ask for better employee protection laws so that people can't be fired at will. This is not a free speech problem IMO, it's a worker right issue. And if it turns out that her contract did mention that she shouldn't publicly engage in something that would damage the company's image or something of the sort, well, that's just the way it works really.
    - throwaway3699 6y ago
      Seriously. Gab isn't a far right white supremacist website. It's just right wing Twitter. I don't understand where all this hyperbole comes from but it's a perfect example of the low-information individuals we have in society today.
      - ryanlol 6y ago
        Twitter is right wing Twitter, Gab is decidedly a far right website. Just take a quick look at the comments on the top stories in the “Gab trends” section: https://trends.gab.com/item/60163b8f144291532b8bccb0 https://trends.gab.com/item/60163b8f144291532b8bccb0 Bill gates conspiracy theorists https://trends.gab.com/item/601682466beb1e3de3156fe1 https://trends.gab.com/item/601682466beb1e3de3156fe1 “Pence is a traitor!” https://trends.gab.com/item/6016992e144291532b8d5986 https://trends.gab.com/item/6016992e144291532b8d5986 “Socialists are murderers!” Are these normal right wing talking points?
        throwaway3699 6y ago
        The populist right has been systemically purged from Twitter. It's not that Twitter is left wing but they ban right wing thought, leading it to be a slanted echo-chamber. Gab is definitely right wing Twitter. I've seen equally whacky things trending on the left side, e.g. "Russian Ads on Facebook won Trump the election".
        6y ago
- crumbshot 6y ago
  I think it is, and it's also a useful conversational marker. As soon as someone starts complaining about "woke" and "SJWs" and "cancel culture" and so on, I know I can just switch off and disengage, as anything they have to say on the topic will be some reactionary bullshit they're parroting at me.

villasv 6y ago

> they will cave to mob rule just like the rest Would they? Microsoft is still serving ICE, despite all the "grilling".

kibwen 6y ago

Is hand-wringing over "woke" bogeymen the next evolution of grousing unironically about "SJWs"?

gfodor 6y ago
I highly advise you write down somewhere what sort of event it would take for you to change your belief that this is nothing to be concerned about. Then, at least do a cursory check to see if such an event has occurred already, it may well have. https://mobile.twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1354194374167560194 https://mobile.twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1354194374...
- kibwen 6y ago
  The first thing would be for someone to actually define "woke", as opposed to slinging it around as a conveniently-nebulous catch-all to describe people they're opposed to (see also "liberal" and "conservative"). What is the woke manifesto? If you have something to say, then please just say it without couching it behind vague terms and "you can connect the dots yourself" conspiratorial thinking.
  - pavlov 6y ago
    The American right has spent the past 35 years inventing scary new names for the same nebulous concept of a Marxist horde threatening to prevent them from speaking honestly. It’s been known as “political correctness”, “social justice warriors”, “wokeness” and certainly a bunch of other names. The fundamental premise doesn’t change because it’s rooted in some deeper fear.
    - dane-pgp 6y ago
      Do you think that no one has ever unironically used "politically correct", "social justice warrior", or "woke" to describe themselves or their opinions? I'm not saying that the response to it isn't rooted in some deeper fear, but that doesn't mean that the phenomenon they are afraid of doesn't exist.
      - pavlov 6y ago
        Of course it exists, but for decades it's been cast into a mold that pattern-matches a longstanding reactionary anxiety. Just like "cosmopolitan" is a neutral/positive adjective by its dictionary definition, but has a very negative connotation in certain right-wing and/or anti-Semite circles.
      - MereInterest 6y ago
        My first exposure to the term "social justice" was several years ago, when a family member began working with local jails and businesses, personally visiting and establishing relationships with inmates, and working to help reduce recidivism by arranging jobs for former inmates. I have never heard the addendum "warrior" added as a self-description, and have only ever heard it applied as a term of mockery from the right.
        dane-pgp 6y ago
        > I have never heard the addendum "warrior" added as a self-description, and have only ever heard it applied as a term of mockery from the right. I'm reluctant to name specific individuals, but there are people who embrace the "SJW" term for themselves. For example, the flair next to the username of this semi-famous developer[0] is a self-description that he is known for.[1] Perhaps you could argue that he is being ironic, but it is a self-description and he certainly doesn't mean to mock people who identify that way. [0] https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2fddvg/im_matthew_garrett_kernel_developer_firmware/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/2fddvg/im_matthew_ga... [1] https://ostatic.com/blog/matthew-garrett-quits-kernel-to-do-his-own https://ostatic.com/blog/matthew-garrett-quits-kernel-to-do-...
  - ralusek 6y ago
    The illiberal left. Liberals believe in universality under the law, free speech, individualism, color-blindness, markets, equality of opportunity, rule of law. The illiberal left, whatever you want to call them, are precisely the opposite. They believe in contextual application of the law, faction and outcomes-based speech tolerance, racial/gender/religious collectivism, and therefore racial consciousness, find markets to be inherently exploitative, determine equality/equity in accordance with population outcomes, and tailor systems around producing equitable collective outcomes, and believe in designing systems that are less principled in their means so much as they are pragmatic in pursuit of their ends. As a liberal myself, I find this faction of the left (AOC/Robin Diangelo/Ibram X. Kendi/Ilhan Omar etc) to be the furthest political faction from my own.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      The thesis of the illiberal left isn't that universality under the law shouldn't exist, the free speech shouldn't exist, that individualism shouldn't exist, that color-blindness shouldn't exist, that equality of opportunity shouldn't exist, or anything else. The thesis is that those things don't exist in the real world. And it goes further than that, by saying that those things cannot exist in our society unless major changes happen. But the goal of abandoning liberalism is not actually to abandon those things, but to actually really realize them. The thesis is that our current systems are not principled either in their means or their ends. And it is true. Free speech is proportional to your means to challenge threats to your livelihood. Rule of law, universality under the law, equality of opportunity, simply do not exist - depending mainly on your socio-economic status but also on other axes such as racial perception of the individual by society, and so on. Equally, the thesis isn't that we shouldn't have color-blindness, simply that the current social and material reality makes this impossible. As a result of this, attempts/pretensions at color-blindness simply make the problem worse. If you didn't notice, the conclusion of the lefitst project after gender equality became progressive weakening and then almost abolition of gender - and I mean this in the strictest sociological sense of gender as the perception of a set of social attributes related to sex. The exact same set of theories are applied to race, before racial abolition there must be a realization of the existence of racial identity (which is indeed the definition of race in the leftist sense - racial identity is completely orthogonal to traits and genetics, it is indeed a completely cultural and social phenomenon and process), then true racial equality, then essentially complete racial abolition. Systems that actually provide real equality of opportunity will always provide actually equitable collective outcomes on the average. Equally, the leftist opposition is not to markets themselves. The leftist opposition is to our current set of property relations and to the relationships of productions. Attempts to change those when the time is not opportune have been disastrous, so the aim is to compensate and slowly work towards actually fixing them using state intervention that ancillary limit the freedom of the free market. But there is no inherent opposition to markets at all. This worldview is only a few decades younger than classical liberalism itself, and started with the disappointed third estate of the French Revolution. Put simply, the thesis is that classical liberalism failed to achieve its promises of liberty, equality, and fraternity, and that making good on those promises requires more careful and less idealistic theories of society and social change than the idealist ones of classical liberalism. I just thought you would enjoy not arguing against strawmen.
  - gfodor 6y ago
    I'll define it to be anyone who either explicitly or implicitly buys into the core elements of the doctrine slash religion of pseudo-postmodern Theory. One of the common patterns of this is the assumption that guilt-by-extra-vague-association (such as having a Parler account) or silence-is-complicity are reasonable ways to motivate extra-judicial justice against people, such as getting them fired, as was done here. These are fundamentally illiberal philosophies, both in their content and their explicit rejection of liberalism as a force for good in society. I wasn't couching what I was saying in any way. I was saying that if you do not think the kinds of behavior we are seeing where people's lives are being ruined by mob justice are anything other than "bogeymen", you ought to write down where the line is for you to honestly reconsider your position. In any situation where society slips slowly into madness, a lack of self-recognition where ones breaking points are contributes greatly to that slide.
    - oneeyedpigeon 6y ago
      > if you do not think the kinds of behavior we are seeing where people's lives are being ruined by mob justice are anything other than "bogeymen" That's not how I took their response at all. I believe they were specifically picking up your derogatory use of the term "woke". If you meant "illiberal", why not use that term? It's far less ambiguous and less loaded.
      - gfodor 6y ago
        Check the author of the comment you are referring to, it's not me. For what it's worth, I do not use the term "woke" for the reason you mentioned, but if someone asks what definition I would apply to it if I had to (as I was here) what I wrote is my answer.
- simias 6y ago
  Oh no, poor literary agent caught posting on Gab, a far right white supremacist website, and losing her job. Thoughts and prayers. More seriously if you think that's a problem IMO the solution is to ask for better employee protection laws so that people can't be fired at will. This is not a free speech problem IMO, it's a worker right issue. And if it turns out that her contract did mention that she shouldn't publicly engage in something that would damage the company's image or something of the sort, well, that's just the way it works really.
  - throwaway3699 6y ago
    Seriously. Gab isn't a far right white supremacist website. It's just right wing Twitter. I don't understand where all this hyperbole comes from but it's a perfect example of the low-information individuals we have in society today.
    - ryanlol 6y ago
      Twitter is right wing Twitter, Gab is decidedly a far right website. Just take a quick look at the comments on the top stories in the “Gab trends” section: https://trends.gab.com/item/60163b8f144291532b8bccb0 https://trends.gab.com/item/60163b8f144291532b8bccb0 Bill gates conspiracy theorists https://trends.gab.com/item/601682466beb1e3de3156fe1 https://trends.gab.com/item/601682466beb1e3de3156fe1 “Pence is a traitor!” https://trends.gab.com/item/6016992e144291532b8d5986 https://trends.gab.com/item/6016992e144291532b8d5986 “Socialists are murderers!” Are these normal right wing talking points?
      - throwaway3699 6y ago
        The populist right has been systemically purged from Twitter. It's not that Twitter is left wing but they ban right wing thought, leading it to be a slanted echo-chamber. Gab is definitely right wing Twitter. I've seen equally whacky things trending on the left side, e.g. "Russian Ads on Facebook won Trump the election".
        6y ago
crumbshot 6y ago
I think it is, and it's also a useful conversational marker. As soon as someone starts complaining about "woke" and "SJWs" and "cancel culture" and so on, I know I can just switch off and disengage, as anything they have to say on the topic will be some reactionary bullshit they're parroting at me.