6 ms·

John Carmack headlines 'toxic and proud' sci-fi con that rails against 'woke'

12 points by djkivi 3y ago

ericzawo 3y ago
The people rallying against wokeness are becoming more annoying than woke itself, which seems to have a goalpost moving definition every fortnight these days.
sillywalk 3y ago
[flagged]
- rayiner 3y ago
  > Medical experts on gender identity are woke What’s the scientific discovery in the last five years that’s responsible for medical experts saying that “men can give birth” when they didn’t before? > the systemic racism of Europeans against non-whites There’s no “systemic racism” “against non-whites.” In the US, the children of poor immigrants from Guatemala or the Philippines end up better off than the children of similarly situated native-born Americans, or German, British, or Canadian immigrants: https://economics.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Figure3_BoustanAbramitzky_FINAL-1-1024x477-1.png https://economics.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/F... If you mean to talk about the unique circumstances facing black people, then say that. “Non-white” isn’t a synonym for “black.”
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > What’s the scientific discovery in the last five years that’s responsible for medical experts saying that “men can give birth” when they didn’t before? "Woke" people think that gender identity != sex, and the word man is (or at least, should be) a pointer to the former. "Anti-woke" or "non-woke" people believe that gender identity doesn't exist, or that gender identity == sex, and therefore the word man must be a pointer to the latter. That literally explains this entire bullshit debate that I keep having to listen to over and over again.
    - rayiner 3y ago
      OP invoked “medical experts”—what I’m trying to get at is what expertise is being invoked exactly. What’s the relevant scientific development (apparently in the last decade) that would change how experts define the term, that lay people might not have access to? To my knowledge, medical experts have been aware of the relevant biological and psychological factors for quite some time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence. What’s changed that causes the experts to use the terminology differently today than they did a decade ago?
      - hackerlight 3y ago
        > What’s the relevant scientific development that would change how experts define the term Changes in terminology can also come from changes in culture and/or values. The word "retard" not being used in medical circles is an example. But if we have to point to a specific scientific development, there have been a lot of recent studies on trans which has grown the knowledge base as well as increased cultural awareness among medical experts of trans. Referring to people by their desired pronoun can be thought of as attempting to avoid their alienation in the spirit of not doing harm.
        rayiner 3y ago
        > Changes in terminology can also come from changes in culture and/or values. I agree that the change in terminology is coming from "changes in culture and/or values" among "medical experts." But that's not an exercise of their medical expertise, right? The culture and/or values of the Dean of the Medical Faculty at Johns Hopkins isn't entitled to any more defense than those of a janitor in that facility, right?
        hackerlight 3y ago
        It may be an exercise of their expertise if that change in culture was partly caused by recent medical research findings into trans, such as the propensity for depression due to alienation, or the efficacy of "gender-affirming care" at reducing depression. I'm not an expert in the history of the field, or the literature, but I wouldn't dismiss the proposition out of hand.
- tinus_hn 3y ago
  If your respect for people craters once you discover they don’t subscribe to the woke agenda, prepare to have your worldview shattered, not by me but just by how the future develops. Woke is a fad, not everyone agrees, not every reasonable person agrees, many reasonable people see that it is a fad and do not agree, it’s a fad so once the hype dies down it’s going to fade away and be a marginal line of thinking for radical activists. In woke everyone can be canceled at any time. In the long run, that just doesn’t work out.
  - hackerlight 3y ago
    > Woke is a fad I wouldn't be so sure. People's values change over time, and new taboos develop. Sometimes permanently. I don't have to name examples because they're obvious.
    - tinus_hn 3y ago
      Yes, some of the issues woke screeches about are perfectly valid issues. That’s why perfectly reasonable people believe in it. But woke as this ‘the only right ideology, cancel everyone with a different opinion, no one is allowed to go to a conference that doesn’t agree, everyone that disagrees is crazy’ is a fad and obviously unsustainable. Woke does not have all the answers but it does try to make it impossible to discuss things, so it makes it impossible to find the answers. The adherents of woke are very loud and talking loudly can drown out other voices. But it doesn’t make them right.
      - hackerlight 3y ago
        > But woke as this ‘the only right ideology, cancel everyone with a different opinion, no one is allowed to go to a conference that doesn’t agree, everyone that disagrees is crazy’ is a fad and obviously unsustainable. How do we know? A lot of people used to screech about slavery being bad, if I was a slaveowner I could have used the same logic that you're using and I would have been wrong. There are many other examples.
        3y ago
vbilopav 3y ago
John Carmac is a legend
arp242 3y ago
- "I want everyone at this conference play by these rules." - "I don't like those rules, so I won't be coming and I'll start my own conference." - "Okay, good luck!" Doesn't need to be hard. Everyone wins. This is a non-controversy because 20 people on Twitter are "angry" (what else is new).
beezlewax 3y ago
What an absolute fool. At the same time, I wish America could do things without almost always shoe-horning politics in there.
fwlr 3y ago
(Note this article is from the middle of May, almost a month ago. It has already had its “outrage cycle”, so to speak.) In his response to this article, Carmack identifies the original reason he found himself in these circles - “I like hard science fiction stories with a bit of competent libertarian vibe. I have since Heinlein”. I also like those kinds of stories, and likewise I happen to be friends with some of the authors of those stories. I’m speaking from personal experience when I say at least some of these authors are hardline, extremist, radical libertarians. That is the most important piece of context I can give you for making sense of why someone might be attending and endorsing a convention which lists a bunch of right-wing beliefs like “men cannot give birth” and “a fetus is a human being” on their about page[1]. I asked someone who’s planning to attend about that list; they said (paraphrasing): “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”. (Note that this is just an attendee, not a speaker or the organizer; I don’t know for sure this is the rationale, but it strikes me as likely.) 1: Because that is a surprising and confusing thing. It is totally legitimate to be surprised and confused that someone is endorsing an event that endorses those beliefs, and to consequently feel hurt and seek explanation!
- josephcsible 3y ago
  > “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”. I feel like the solution to the Paradox of Tolerance might be in there somewhere.
- elcritch 3y ago
  According to this poll only 22% of democrats or 27% of liberals believed the statement "some men can give birth". It seems absurd to me to call "men cannot give birth" a right wing belief. I can see why someone like Carmack who's into hard sci-fi would like a venue where they're not just playing semantics and word games.
  - 3y ago
wrp 3y ago
I like hard SF and don't like politics mixed in (even Heinlein can annoy me), so this isn't something I would follow, but I think the case is philosophically interesting. A substantial portion of serious SF devotees think that "good" SF should be transgressive. Well, if the SF community itself allows one perspective on things to be enforced over the community, isn't it adhering to the transgressive mandate to poke against it?

12 points by djkivi 3y ago

The people rallying against wokeness are becoming more annoying than woke itself, which seems to have a goalpost moving definition every fortnight these days.

sillywalk 3y ago

[flagged]

rayiner 3y ago
> Medical experts on gender identity are woke What’s the scientific discovery in the last five years that’s responsible for medical experts saying that “men can give birth” when they didn’t before? > the systemic racism of Europeans against non-whites There’s no “systemic racism” “against non-whites.” In the US, the children of poor immigrants from Guatemala or the Philippines end up better off than the children of similarly situated native-born Americans, or German, British, or Canadian immigrants: https://economics.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Figure3_BoustanAbramitzky_FINAL-1-1024x477-1.png https://economics.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/F... If you mean to talk about the unique circumstances facing black people, then say that. “Non-white” isn’t a synonym for “black.”
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > What’s the scientific discovery in the last five years that’s responsible for medical experts saying that “men can give birth” when they didn’t before? "Woke" people think that gender identity != sex, and the word man is (or at least, should be) a pointer to the former. "Anti-woke" or "non-woke" people believe that gender identity doesn't exist, or that gender identity == sex, and therefore the word man must be a pointer to the latter. That literally explains this entire bullshit debate that I keep having to listen to over and over again.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    OP invoked “medical experts”—what I’m trying to get at is what expertise is being invoked exactly. What’s the relevant scientific development (apparently in the last decade) that would change how experts define the term, that lay people might not have access to? To my knowledge, medical experts have been aware of the relevant biological and psychological factors for quite some time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_gender_incongruence. What’s changed that causes the experts to use the terminology differently today than they did a decade ago?
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      > What’s the relevant scientific development that would change how experts define the term Changes in terminology can also come from changes in culture and/or values. The word "retard" not being used in medical circles is an example. But if we have to point to a specific scientific development, there have been a lot of recent studies on trans which has grown the knowledge base as well as increased cultural awareness among medical experts of trans. Referring to people by their desired pronoun can be thought of as attempting to avoid their alienation in the spirit of not doing harm.
      - rayiner 3y ago
        > Changes in terminology can also come from changes in culture and/or values. I agree that the change in terminology is coming from "changes in culture and/or values" among "medical experts." But that's not an exercise of their medical expertise, right? The culture and/or values of the Dean of the Medical Faculty at Johns Hopkins isn't entitled to any more defense than those of a janitor in that facility, right?
        hackerlight 3y ago
        It may be an exercise of their expertise if that change in culture was partly caused by recent medical research findings into trans, such as the propensity for depression due to alienation, or the efficacy of "gender-affirming care" at reducing depression. I'm not an expert in the history of the field, or the literature, but I wouldn't dismiss the proposition out of hand.
tinus_hn 3y ago
If your respect for people craters once you discover they don’t subscribe to the woke agenda, prepare to have your worldview shattered, not by me but just by how the future develops. Woke is a fad, not everyone agrees, not every reasonable person agrees, many reasonable people see that it is a fad and do not agree, it’s a fad so once the hype dies down it’s going to fade away and be a marginal line of thinking for radical activists. In woke everyone can be canceled at any time. In the long run, that just doesn’t work out.
- hackerlight 3y ago
  > Woke is a fad I wouldn't be so sure. People's values change over time, and new taboos develop. Sometimes permanently. I don't have to name examples because they're obvious.
  - tinus_hn 3y ago
    Yes, some of the issues woke screeches about are perfectly valid issues. That’s why perfectly reasonable people believe in it. But woke as this ‘the only right ideology, cancel everyone with a different opinion, no one is allowed to go to a conference that doesn’t agree, everyone that disagrees is crazy’ is a fad and obviously unsustainable. Woke does not have all the answers but it does try to make it impossible to discuss things, so it makes it impossible to find the answers. The adherents of woke are very loud and talking loudly can drown out other voices. But it doesn’t make them right.
    - hackerlight 3y ago
      > But woke as this ‘the only right ideology, cancel everyone with a different opinion, no one is allowed to go to a conference that doesn’t agree, everyone that disagrees is crazy’ is a fad and obviously unsustainable. How do we know? A lot of people used to screech about slavery being bad, if I was a slaveowner I could have used the same logic that you're using and I would have been wrong. There are many other examples.
      - 3y ago

vbilopav 3y ago

John Carmac is a legend

arp242 3y ago

- "I want everyone at this conference play by these rules." - "I don't like those rules, so I won't be coming and I'll start my own conference." - "Okay, good luck!" Doesn't need to be hard. Everyone wins. This is a non-controversy because 20 people on Twitter are "angry" (what else is new).

beezlewax 3y ago

What an absolute fool. At the same time, I wish America could do things without almost always shoe-horning politics in there.

fwlr 3y ago

(Note this article is from the middle of May, almost a month ago. It has already had its “outrage cycle”, so to speak.) In his response to this article, Carmack identifies the original reason he found himself in these circles - “I like hard science fiction stories with a bit of competent libertarian vibe. I have since Heinlein”. I also like those kinds of stories, and likewise I happen to be friends with some of the authors of those stories. I’m speaking from personal experience when I say at least some of these authors are hardline, extremist, radical libertarians. That is the most important piece of context I can give you for making sense of why someone might be attending and endorsing a convention which lists a bunch of right-wing beliefs like “men cannot give birth” and “a fetus is a human being” on their about page[1]. I asked someone who’s planning to attend about that list; they said (paraphrasing): “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”. (Note that this is just an attendee, not a speaker or the organizer; I don’t know for sure this is the rationale, but it strikes me as likely.) 1: Because that is a surprising and confusing thing. It is totally legitimate to be surprised and confused that someone is endorsing an event that endorses those beliefs, and to consequently feel hurt and seek explanation!

josephcsible 3y ago
> “I happen to be 2/5, but the point is that I accept anyone from 0/5 to 5/5, so that list doesn’t bother me. There is a type of person who only accepts people who are 0/5. The list is supposed to bother that type of person, so that they don’t attend”. I feel like the solution to the Paradox of Tolerance might be in there somewhere.
elcritch 3y ago
According to this poll only 22% of democrats or 27% of liberals believed the statement "some men can give birth". It seems absurd to me to call "men cannot give birth" a right wing belief. I can see why someone like Carmack who's into hard sci-fi would like a venue where they're not just playing semantics and word games.
- 3y ago

wrp 3y ago

I like hard SF and don't like politics mixed in (even Heinlein can annoy me), so this isn't something I would follow, but I think the case is philosophically interesting. A substantial portion of serious SF devotees think that "good" SF should be transgressive. Well, if the SF community itself allows one perspective on things to be enforced over the community, isn't it adhering to the transgressive mandate to poke against it?