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>We need to keep voicing these thoughts so that decision-makers in large companies have a chance to hear us and realize that they should focus on more useful is

>We need to keep voicing these thoughts so that decision-makers in large companies have a chance to hear us and realize that they should focus on more useful issues instead. I suppose they are not doing it for your feeling's sake. They are doing it to avoid being a target of a woke mob feigning offense for their own ideological gain in the on-going identity culture war which is happening in the west.

weddpros 6y ago
When the woke mob hinders the very minority it's supposed to care about, it starts a vicious circle and nothing changes for the best
- HeckFeck 6y ago
  They've immense power over corporations. It's a flex. It doesn't have to make any sense or to be connected in any way to the people it is allegedly helping. Insisting to help people is quite insulting, actually. Empowerment means you voice your own grievances. It doesn't mean recruit an army of armchair activists to do it for you.
  - daptaq 6y ago
    One have to be careful to not generalize their power, since I hear this a lot. It is strictly restricted to the "cultural sphere", just like a lot of politics itself. It is all about managing affections, not actions. Woke is performative radicalism. Or to put it this way, if the "woke mob" decided to protest capitalism or even higher/stricter taxes, do you think that anything would change? Probably not, because production for profit it still at the core of every corp while at the same time the woke crowd has a limited understanding of capitalism to begin with (as can be seen by the claims that capitalism is by necessity based on racism). It is the worst of both worlds.
- morlockabove 6y ago
  They're not supposed to care about minorities. If they actually made a positive difference- say, lowered the births out of wedlock/divorce rate among black US parents, thereby causing a slew of knock-on effects- if they actually solved the problems they complained about, they'd be out of a job. They're supposed to put on a good performance of caring and wanting to fix things, then make things worse. The best way for a foot soldier to do this is to fervently believe in the cause, and be swept up in the ideology that causes them to be incompetent and solving problems. Most people, of course, are just lying so they don't get fired.
  - chriswarbo 6y ago
    > If they actually made a positive difference- say, lowered the births out of wedlock/divorce rate among black US parents, thereby causing a slew of knock-on effects- if they actually solved the problems they complained about, they'd be out of a job I get your sentiment, but this seems to be putting the cart before the horse, in multiple ways. Divorce rates and births out of wedlock do not have "a slew of knock-on effects"; they are the effects. There are only two reasons to care about those rates: - They are easily measured, due to existing government accounting (birth/marriage/divorce certificates, etc.) - Religious bullshit I'll ignore the latter, since it cannot be reasoned with. In the case of divorce, it doesn't happen without reason. Anecdotally, my parents divorced due to alcoholism and domestic abuse; my childhood, social mobility, earnings potential, etc. was improved by their divorce. Tackling alcoholism and domestic abuse may have "a slew of knock-on effects", including lower divorce rates; yet the reverse is not true, e.g. making it harder to get a divorce will not reduce alcoholism and abuse, it would merely subject more children to it for longer. If we make the charitable assumption that the goal of what you're saying is for more children to receive more help and support, rather than the opposite described above, then that's several levels removed from what you actually said; and each of those levels introduces exactly the distracting, partisan rhetoric that you are arguing against. - The first level of abstraction is focusing on the US. This seems fair enough, assuming you're in the US. Yet it's still important to note this abstraction, e.g. in the context of foreign aid. For example, it might be more efficient (i.e. give more help to more children) to spend more on foreign aid, since money can go further in poorer countries; alternatively, spending that money domestically might be more efficient (give more help to more children) due to targeting and accountability. If we want to give the most help to the most children, we should base policy on measured impacts; yet this is often framed as a "left vs right" partisan issue (pretending for the moment that the US even has a left wing), which distracts from actually achieving the stated goal. - Next, you further narrow your focus to the black US population. This also seems fair, as they are a disenfranchised and oppressed group, and hence this focuses on a large number of large issues that need fixing. Even from a purely utilitarian point of view, it may be cheaper (or even reduce costs) to, say, tackle over-policing of black neighbourhoods; compared to tackling some more diffuse, less directly-controllable issue in other populations (e.g. suicide rates in white males). However, it's again worth noting the abstraction: in particular, a large improvement for the minority black population may have less impact than a smaller improvement for a larger population (e.g. the female population). Again, policy should be based on measurable impacts towards the stated goal, and again this has been turned into a partisan circus to distract from real change (e.g. with concern trolling about 'ignoring' white males). - Next you split the focus between births out of wedlock and divorce rates. I've mentioned the impacts of divorce above; the partisan circus in this case involves 'traditional values', and bleeds into other areas like gay, trans and women's rights. - The phrase "lowered births out of wedlock" is problematic, since (again) it is very far removed from the assumed goal of 'the most help to the most children', and hence puts the cart before the horse; and secondly it is charged with dangerous ambiguity. For example, lowering birth rates of 'undesirable' demographics (e.g. unmarried black people) could be achieved via eugenics; I'm hoping that is not what you had in mind, but that depends heavily on the reader's overton window; hence provoking both the far right and their opposition. Another way to lower this rate would be forced marriage; again, I hope that wasn't your intention, but again that depends on the reader, and the normalisation of such rhetoric stokes division. I agree with your overall point that 'culture wars', 'wokeness', etc. are a distraction from solving real problems; yet what you are saying is itself an example of such distraction. I'm not aware of a word that sums up 'concern-trolling about how "wokeness" is concern-trolling', but that's how I would describe your phrasing. In this case, I'm not aware of any person or group (e.g. Black Lives Matter, 'wokeists', etc.) who has asked for Github to change their naming policy, let alone demand it under threat of protest/boycot (AKA 'cancel culture'/'voting with your wallet', depending on which side of the circus one is sitting). Exactly the same can be said of Washington DC renaming Black Lives Matter plaza, and many other such real, measurable examples. Hence, when discussing such actions, any focus (for or against) on 'woke' individuals is itself a distraction. Those who applaud such moves (if that's actually a thing; I've come across nothing but scorn for such actions) have been successfully distracted from the real issues that have sparked protest and boycot; whether it's GitHub's sexism and discrimination, or the US police system's racism and lack of accountability. Those (like yourself) who scorn such applause (again, under the assumption that it actually exists in some non-manufactured/devil's-advocate form) have also been successfully distracted from those real issues of sexism, discrimination and racism. Complaining about 'wokeness' is a partisan circus, abstracted away from the stated issues themselves, fighting hypothetical slights from imagined enemies. Of course, I'm not immune from such attacks myself. In this case, I'm grounded by the sheer prevalence of such backwards logic as you've expressed here, which I come across without seeking it out (cherry-picking smallfry posts scoured from Twitter/Tumblr/etc. is a perennial hobby of the 'anti-woke' distraction machine). On sites like Reddit I merely find it concerning (whether real or astroturfing to shift the overton window, the effect is similar). When it starts infecting sites like HN, which tend to reward thoughtful, reasoned content rather than knee-jerk memes, I feel a need to push back :)
- lmm 6y ago
  It's not for helping minorities. It's for helping the PMC stay on top, by making rules that only people who grew up in the right class and went to the right schools will be able to follow, cloaking that function in a nominal reason for those rules that's unimpeachable. And it does that very well.
  - gwd 6y ago
    > It's for helping the PMC stay on top You mean the professional-managerial class? Or something else?
    - gurkendoktor 6y ago
      Yes, pretty sure that this is a reference to the professional-managerial class. It's a common refrain on the populist left/"dirtbag left" that identity politics are often dishonest class warfare. (I agree.)
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  If you save the downtrodden you can't be the saviors of the downtrodden because the downtrodden don't need saving.
tsss 6y ago
They are the woke mob. Who else ever cared about this? It's the doing of the toxic corporate diversity committees who pull this shit to appear like they're doing something against discrimination without actually making any meaningful changes.
TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
I read the parent comment to mean that by pro-actively making changes in an effort you avoid the woke buffoons, while completely ignoring the voices of those who ought matter most, you're admitting defeat and in doing so granting the buffoons yet more power. I'd argue if someone is feigning offense we should call them out on it, not collectively fucking prostrate ourselves. This whole fiasco just makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the background while we're being distracted by this... surströmming-level red herring.
josephg 6y ago
> on-going identity culture war which is happening in the west. I'd love to see some demographics around this. When I lived in the bay area, most of my friends were part of this woke / "activist" community. I had some friends who disagreed, but mostly they were terrified to say so for fear of the mob. Here in Australia, it seems like the demographics are the other way around. I know a few people who are part of the leftist woke / "activist" tribe. But most people I interact with socially think that while racism is a problem, the twitter mobs are a bit silly, and the woke stuff is overblown. I don't know how you'd measure, but I'd love to see stats on what percentage of the communities in different cities hold this political stance. Is it growing or shrinking? Is it widespread in the west, or is it mostly just a bay area / portland / NY phenomenon - with small satellite groups in other countries?
- xg15 6y ago
  Seems not even in the US things are as clear-cut as it seems: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...
  - galangalalgol 6y ago
    Fascinating, thank you!
- mbeex 6y ago
  First and foremost, it is a disproportionately loud group in terms of the media, small or not. This is the important issue.
- ficklepickle 6y ago
  Think pendulums reacting to their perceptions of each other, maybe. I work with a Canadian team but American parent company. We see what they are going through and it is definitely different. I think our version of equality is just working together as peers and respecting each other, there is no performative or ablutionary aspect. For the record, I think parent co. is genuine and seems very diverse too. Views are my own yada yada.
otikik 6y ago
> mob feigning offense for their own ideological gain Yes, it is definitely the "woke" who do this, and you are absolutely not projecting.
leshenka 6y ago
> avoid being a target of a woke mob What are they going to do? Stop using GitHub? Good f ing riddance
- marcodave 6y ago
  No, but if GitHub is mentioned in a very angry Twitter thread, and is being targeted by a woke and bored journalist which would write an angry and misdirected article putting the words "racism" and "GitHub" together, is most likely a good enough motivation to avoid a PR disaster
  - pydry 6y ago
    The "woke mob" were chasing them because of the contract with ICE and the police facial recognition stuff that's very profitable and they'd like to continue doing. The master branch thing was an attempt at misdirection and throwing the mob a bone. It's a classic PR move. The entire objective was to generate distracting noise. Policing language is popular among corporations for the same reason oil companies got "woke" about recycling in the 80s: * It doesn't really change anything and doesn't affect profit margins. * It affects everybody albeit very lightly and is extemely visible. * It naturally leads people to shame each other, taking the heat off the corp. * They can score some progressive points at minimum cost. Same mechanism, different era.
    - cinquemb 6y ago
      At some point if things continue to get worse overall, these games wont work because the "woke mob" (not limited to that particular "group", individuals may share the same opinion on such activities, or at least where the most disgruntled overlaps with most capable) will start to realize what you describe and just figure its more effective to target GH infrastructure/employees/family/friends and officers directly, no need for angry tweets (and not strictly related to GH but other corporations that engage in similar services as well).
goatinaboat 6y ago
They are doing it to avoid being a target of a woke mob feigning offense for their own ideological gain in the on-going identity culture war which is happening in the west. Another example, Bezos recently banned books critical of transgender from being sold on Amazon. And just like that, everyone forgot about Amazon's brutal suppression of union organising activity in their warehouses. Similarly the rest of Big Tech thinks it can toss out token gestures and placate those who are critical of its business practices.
andy_ppp 6y ago
I hate this “woke mob” branding, there isn’t one, there are people who care about social issues who are individuals. Some go too far, I agree, but we should aim to treat everyone, no matter what they believe (yes even if you think they are really wrong) with respect rather than pigeon holing all their views in with a group you don’t like.
- Siira 6y ago
  > people who care about social issues Translation: people who see an opportunity to debase others for free and put themselves on a pedestal Update: We call this class of people Mullahs here in Iran. It's been slowly but surely becoming apparent to us that they are somewhat of a societal parasite.
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    If you look extremely closely at what you just wrote you might see it as slightly ironic. Edited: removed snark
    - Siira 6y ago
      I actually knew my comment was following essentially the same game-theory as the woke, like almost every single complaint on the internet. The difference in targets' deservability is apparent to me. Edited: removed snark
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
- virgilp 6y ago
  Except a lot of those individuals will happily brand you to pigeon hole all your views with a dislikable group, so at this point I think branding them back is fair game.
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
austincheney 6y ago
This isn’t a real thing. It’s an artificial nonsense of social media. It’s nonsense for two reasons: 1a. The number of valid participants is low. It is easy to feel powerful sitting comfortably hidden in your parent’s basement behind a keyboard craving attention and direction. Misery loves company and when such people band together their numbers can appear large compared to something like a real world gathering of persons in a physical space. But it’s not real people in a real space, because that takes considerably greater effort. 1b. The numbers also appear artificially inflated because there is a low effort of repetition, which can appear as false participation, spam, trolling, denial of service. 2. There isn’t any real investment in most of this. Most of the motivation are bored people looking for inspiration to be emotionally concerned. They will point where the carrot leads. That isn’t a movement. A real movement features numerous participants willing to make a personal investment like those criminals that stormed the capital.

weddpros 6y ago

When the woke mob hinders the very minority it's supposed to care about, it starts a vicious circle and nothing changes for the best

HeckFeck 6y ago
They've immense power over corporations. It's a flex. It doesn't have to make any sense or to be connected in any way to the people it is allegedly helping. Insisting to help people is quite insulting, actually. Empowerment means you voice your own grievances. It doesn't mean recruit an army of armchair activists to do it for you.
- daptaq 6y ago
  One have to be careful to not generalize their power, since I hear this a lot. It is strictly restricted to the "cultural sphere", just like a lot of politics itself. It is all about managing affections, not actions. Woke is performative radicalism. Or to put it this way, if the "woke mob" decided to protest capitalism or even higher/stricter taxes, do you think that anything would change? Probably not, because production for profit it still at the core of every corp while at the same time the woke crowd has a limited understanding of capitalism to begin with (as can be seen by the claims that capitalism is by necessity based on racism). It is the worst of both worlds.
morlockabove 6y ago
They're not supposed to care about minorities. If they actually made a positive difference- say, lowered the births out of wedlock/divorce rate among black US parents, thereby causing a slew of knock-on effects- if they actually solved the problems they complained about, they'd be out of a job. They're supposed to put on a good performance of caring and wanting to fix things, then make things worse. The best way for a foot soldier to do this is to fervently believe in the cause, and be swept up in the ideology that causes them to be incompetent and solving problems. Most people, of course, are just lying so they don't get fired.
- chriswarbo 6y ago
  > If they actually made a positive difference- say, lowered the births out of wedlock/divorce rate among black US parents, thereby causing a slew of knock-on effects- if they actually solved the problems they complained about, they'd be out of a job I get your sentiment, but this seems to be putting the cart before the horse, in multiple ways. Divorce rates and births out of wedlock do not have "a slew of knock-on effects"; they are the effects. There are only two reasons to care about those rates: - They are easily measured, due to existing government accounting (birth/marriage/divorce certificates, etc.) - Religious bullshit I'll ignore the latter, since it cannot be reasoned with. In the case of divorce, it doesn't happen without reason. Anecdotally, my parents divorced due to alcoholism and domestic abuse; my childhood, social mobility, earnings potential, etc. was improved by their divorce. Tackling alcoholism and domestic abuse may have "a slew of knock-on effects", including lower divorce rates; yet the reverse is not true, e.g. making it harder to get a divorce will not reduce alcoholism and abuse, it would merely subject more children to it for longer. If we make the charitable assumption that the goal of what you're saying is for more children to receive more help and support, rather than the opposite described above, then that's several levels removed from what you actually said; and each of those levels introduces exactly the distracting, partisan rhetoric that you are arguing against. - The first level of abstraction is focusing on the US. This seems fair enough, assuming you're in the US. Yet it's still important to note this abstraction, e.g. in the context of foreign aid. For example, it might be more efficient (i.e. give more help to more children) to spend more on foreign aid, since money can go further in poorer countries; alternatively, spending that money domestically might be more efficient (give more help to more children) due to targeting and accountability. If we want to give the most help to the most children, we should base policy on measured impacts; yet this is often framed as a "left vs right" partisan issue (pretending for the moment that the US even has a left wing), which distracts from actually achieving the stated goal. - Next, you further narrow your focus to the black US population. This also seems fair, as they are a disenfranchised and oppressed group, and hence this focuses on a large number of large issues that need fixing. Even from a purely utilitarian point of view, it may be cheaper (or even reduce costs) to, say, tackle over-policing of black neighbourhoods; compared to tackling some more diffuse, less directly-controllable issue in other populations (e.g. suicide rates in white males). However, it's again worth noting the abstraction: in particular, a large improvement for the minority black population may have less impact than a smaller improvement for a larger population (e.g. the female population). Again, policy should be based on measurable impacts towards the stated goal, and again this has been turned into a partisan circus to distract from real change (e.g. with concern trolling about 'ignoring' white males). - Next you split the focus between births out of wedlock and divorce rates. I've mentioned the impacts of divorce above; the partisan circus in this case involves 'traditional values', and bleeds into other areas like gay, trans and women's rights. - The phrase "lowered births out of wedlock" is problematic, since (again) it is very far removed from the assumed goal of 'the most help to the most children', and hence puts the cart before the horse; and secondly it is charged with dangerous ambiguity. For example, lowering birth rates of 'undesirable' demographics (e.g. unmarried black people) could be achieved via eugenics; I'm hoping that is not what you had in mind, but that depends heavily on the reader's overton window; hence provoking both the far right and their opposition. Another way to lower this rate would be forced marriage; again, I hope that wasn't your intention, but again that depends on the reader, and the normalisation of such rhetoric stokes division. I agree with your overall point that 'culture wars', 'wokeness', etc. are a distraction from solving real problems; yet what you are saying is itself an example of such distraction. I'm not aware of a word that sums up 'concern-trolling about how "wokeness" is concern-trolling', but that's how I would describe your phrasing. In this case, I'm not aware of any person or group (e.g. Black Lives Matter, 'wokeists', etc.) who has asked for Github to change their naming policy, let alone demand it under threat of protest/boycot (AKA 'cancel culture'/'voting with your wallet', depending on which side of the circus one is sitting). Exactly the same can be said of Washington DC renaming Black Lives Matter plaza, and many other such real, measurable examples. Hence, when discussing such actions, any focus (for or against) on 'woke' individuals is itself a distraction. Those who applaud such moves (if that's actually a thing; I've come across nothing but scorn for such actions) have been successfully distracted from the real issues that have sparked protest and boycot; whether it's GitHub's sexism and discrimination, or the US police system's racism and lack of accountability. Those (like yourself) who scorn such applause (again, under the assumption that it actually exists in some non-manufactured/devil's-advocate form) have also been successfully distracted from those real issues of sexism, discrimination and racism. Complaining about 'wokeness' is a partisan circus, abstracted away from the stated issues themselves, fighting hypothetical slights from imagined enemies. Of course, I'm not immune from such attacks myself. In this case, I'm grounded by the sheer prevalence of such backwards logic as you've expressed here, which I come across without seeking it out (cherry-picking smallfry posts scoured from Twitter/Tumblr/etc. is a perennial hobby of the 'anti-woke' distraction machine). On sites like Reddit I merely find it concerning (whether real or astroturfing to shift the overton window, the effect is similar). When it starts infecting sites like HN, which tend to reward thoughtful, reasoned content rather than knee-jerk memes, I feel a need to push back :)
lmm 6y ago
It's not for helping minorities. It's for helping the PMC stay on top, by making rules that only people who grew up in the right class and went to the right schools will be able to follow, cloaking that function in a nominal reason for those rules that's unimpeachable. And it does that very well.
- gwd 6y ago
  > It's for helping the PMC stay on top You mean the professional-managerial class? Or something else?
  - gurkendoktor 6y ago
    Yes, pretty sure that this is a reference to the professional-managerial class. It's a common refrain on the populist left/"dirtbag left" that identity politics are often dishonest class warfare. (I agree.)
throwaway0a5e 6y ago
If you save the downtrodden you can't be the saviors of the downtrodden because the downtrodden don't need saving.

tsss 6y ago

They are the woke mob. Who else ever cared about this? It's the doing of the toxic corporate diversity committees who pull this shit to appear like they're doing something against discrimination without actually making any meaningful changes.

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago

I read the parent comment to mean that by pro-actively making changes in an effort you avoid the woke buffoons, while completely ignoring the voices of those who ought matter most, you're admitting defeat and in doing so granting the buffoons yet more power. I'd argue if someone is feigning offense we should call them out on it, not collectively fucking prostrate ourselves. This whole fiasco just makes me wonder what the hell is going on in the background while we're being distracted by this... surströmming-level red herring.

josephg 6y ago

> on-going identity culture war which is happening in the west. I'd love to see some demographics around this. When I lived in the bay area, most of my friends were part of this woke / "activist" community. I had some friends who disagreed, but mostly they were terrified to say so for fear of the mob. Here in Australia, it seems like the demographics are the other way around. I know a few people who are part of the leftist woke / "activist" tribe. But most people I interact with socially think that while racism is a problem, the twitter mobs are a bit silly, and the woke stuff is overblown. I don't know how you'd measure, but I'd love to see stats on what percentage of the communities in different cities hold this political stance. Is it growing or shrinking? Is it widespread in the west, or is it mostly just a bay area / portland / NY phenomenon - with small satellite groups in other countries?

xg15 6y ago
Seems not even in the US things are as clear-cut as it seems: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majorities-dislike-political-correctness/572581/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/large-majo...
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  Fascinating, thank you!
mbeex 6y ago
First and foremost, it is a disproportionately loud group in terms of the media, small or not. This is the important issue.
ficklepickle 6y ago
Think pendulums reacting to their perceptions of each other, maybe. I work with a Canadian team but American parent company. We see what they are going through and it is definitely different. I think our version of equality is just working together as peers and respecting each other, there is no performative or ablutionary aspect. For the record, I think parent co. is genuine and seems very diverse too. Views are my own yada yada.

otikik 6y ago

> mob feigning offense for their own ideological gain Yes, it is definitely the "woke" who do this, and you are absolutely not projecting.

leshenka 6y ago

> avoid being a target of a woke mob What are they going to do? Stop using GitHub? Good f ing riddance

marcodave 6y ago
No, but if GitHub is mentioned in a very angry Twitter thread, and is being targeted by a woke and bored journalist which would write an angry and misdirected article putting the words "racism" and "GitHub" together, is most likely a good enough motivation to avoid a PR disaster
- pydry 6y ago
  The "woke mob" were chasing them because of the contract with ICE and the police facial recognition stuff that's very profitable and they'd like to continue doing. The master branch thing was an attempt at misdirection and throwing the mob a bone. It's a classic PR move. The entire objective was to generate distracting noise. Policing language is popular among corporations for the same reason oil companies got "woke" about recycling in the 80s: * It doesn't really change anything and doesn't affect profit margins. * It affects everybody albeit very lightly and is extemely visible. * It naturally leads people to shame each other, taking the heat off the corp. * They can score some progressive points at minimum cost. Same mechanism, different era.
  - cinquemb 6y ago
    At some point if things continue to get worse overall, these games wont work because the "woke mob" (not limited to that particular "group", individuals may share the same opinion on such activities, or at least where the most disgruntled overlaps with most capable) will start to realize what you describe and just figure its more effective to target GH infrastructure/employees/family/friends and officers directly, no need for angry tweets (and not strictly related to GH but other corporations that engage in similar services as well).

goatinaboat 6y ago

They are doing it to avoid being a target of a woke mob feigning offense for their own ideological gain in the on-going identity culture war which is happening in the west. Another example, Bezos recently banned books critical of transgender from being sold on Amazon. And just like that, everyone forgot about Amazon's brutal suppression of union organising activity in their warehouses. Similarly the rest of Big Tech thinks it can toss out token gestures and placate those who are critical of its business practices.

andy_ppp 6y ago

I hate this “woke mob” branding, there isn’t one, there are people who care about social issues who are individuals. Some go too far, I agree, but we should aim to treat everyone, no matter what they believe (yes even if you think they are really wrong) with respect rather than pigeon holing all their views in with a group you don’t like.

Siira 6y ago
> people who care about social issues Translation: people who see an opportunity to debase others for free and put themselves on a pedestal Update: We call this class of people Mullahs here in Iran. It's been slowly but surely becoming apparent to us that they are somewhat of a societal parasite.
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  If you look extremely closely at what you just wrote you might see it as slightly ironic. Edited: removed snark
  - Siira 6y ago
    I actually knew my comment was following essentially the same game-theory as the woke, like almost every single complaint on the internet. The difference in targets' deservability is apparent to me. Edited: removed snark
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
virgilp 6y ago
Except a lot of those individuals will happily brand you to pigeon hole all your views with a dislikable group, so at this point I think branding them back is fair game.
- andy_ppp 6y ago

austincheney 6y ago

This isn’t a real thing. It’s an artificial nonsense of social media. It’s nonsense for two reasons: 1a. The number of valid participants is low. It is easy to feel powerful sitting comfortably hidden in your parent’s basement behind a keyboard craving attention and direction. Misery loves company and when such people band together their numbers can appear large compared to something like a real world gathering of persons in a physical space. But it’s not real people in a real space, because that takes considerably greater effort. 1b. The numbers also appear artificially inflated because there is a low effort of repetition, which can appear as false participation, spam, trolling, denial of service. 2. There isn’t any real investment in most of this. Most of the motivation are bored people looking for inspiration to be emotionally concerned. They will point where the carrot leads. That isn’t a movement. A real movement features numerous participants willing to make a personal investment like those criminals that stormed the capital.