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I don't think anyone reading this article would conclude that PG believes racism is a bigger problem than wokism. Which wildly diminishes the actual real-world

I don't think anyone reading this article would conclude that PG believes racism is a bigger problem than wokism. Which wildly diminishes the actual real-world impact of racism and wildly exaggerates the actual real world impact of wokism.

bpt3 2y ago
[flagged]
- Jensson 2y ago
  > designed to appease (and in some cases enrich) a very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population. Note that the people enriched here aren't the poor minorities, it are the self proclaimed leaders of these movements that gets high positions in governments and companies and thus enrich themselves. There is no value in making those grifters richer, even though there is value in helping poor people.
- vannevar 2y ago
  Is it an "enormous amount of resources"? How do you think it compares to the amount of resources historically put into racism, including all the waste and lost opportunity costs? In my experience, most people complaining about wokism are projecting their own annoyance at language policing into some kind of massive social problem. But I'm open-minded, and if you have a good argument that the resources put into wokism far outweigh the losses from racism, I'm happy to listen. PG's essay makes no effort to present that argument.
  - bpt3 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - vannevar 2y ago
      So your point isn't so much that language policing costs a lot, it's that it doesn't provide any value. But what if it does? What if the way people talk publicly about other people does impact behavior? Do you think the social stigma attached to the n-word, and the consequential reduction in its public use, helped contribute to equal rights? What about slurs against gays, or Jews? Maybe there is some value in policing language after all?
      - Jensson 2y ago
        Language policing costs a lot, but its invisible since its the cost of everyone updating themselves and spending time rethinking what to say. That is worth many billions of dollars in lost time, and since its a moving target like we see with other words constantly getting updated it will never stop, its an ongoing cost we constantly pay for this.
        vannevar 2y ago
        >Language policing costs a lot, but its invisible since its the cost of everyone updating themselves and spending time rethinking what to say. How often do you think the average person actually has to change their language? It seems like it would be a pretty tiny fraction for the vast majority of people in the vast majority of circumstances. On the other hand, if you're a professor of history or a public official, it probably does cost some of your time. But in those cases, doesn't it also provide value?
        ctoth 2y ago
        Not sure how frequently you create a new Git repo but every time I do I am given some weird moralizing thing about the branch name.
        Earw0rm 2y ago
        Is the same true of other forms of manners, table behaviour say, or are they actually encoding something useful and pro-social? My guess is, if I'd had to learn to use a knife and fork and typical Western table manners at 35, it'd remain a small stone in my shoe for life. Which is to say, not using certain language might always grind our gears a little. I notice it, certainly don't always use the words my brain first reaches for, but not so much as to bug me. There's so much other self-censorship that we automate subconsciously or almost, it's not a big deal. For younger people? It's no deal at all, they have no more use for the R word than you or I do in some obsolete 19th century racial slur.
        bpt3 2y ago
  - raxxor 2y ago
    [flagged]
- notacoward 2y ago
  Which performative activities, though, for which very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population? Have you seen Musk's or Zuck's antics lately? Condemning the lesser offender(s) can gain favor with the greater, but it's useless for making any real point. Who's being performative now?
throw101010qwe 2y ago
Your interpretation is the exact problem. How many times do people need to say it? Racism is bad, what else there to say? Because he did not say it multiple times throughout the essay we are going to label him though and suggest and at the same time conclude that the thinks wokism is worse than racism. Sheesh that’s a great imagination.
- vannevar 2y ago
  He spends 4500+ words talking about how bad wokism is (mostly complaining about how some people are complaining about language), and all of maybe 100 words acknowledging racism, and even then uses some of those to say it isn't as bad as the woke think. If you were writing an essay opposing a solution to a problem you really believed to be a terrible problem, wouldn't you take a little more time on why the solution was counter-productive, and maybe offer some alternatives?
  - throw101010qwe 2y ago
    Was the title The Origins of Racism? You are manufacturing an issue.
    - vannevar 2y ago
      So wokism has nothing to do with racism? Don't be ridiculous. You are ducking an issue.
      - throw101010qwe 2y ago
        Clearly our views don’t align but I also don’t think anyone is ducking an issue. Racism is wrong but perhaps “wokism” makes it to be a lot worse of a problem than it really is. The article was not a history of racism or how to solve it. If anyone is moving the goal post it’s you. I will accept that we probably cannot come to terms but happy to discuss.
        vannevar 2y ago
inglor_cz 2y ago
The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness, instead of actually doing something for the people, which should be the defining part of being left. Woke is all rituals, no substance. If anyone profits off it, it is highly educated individuals that belong to the visible minorities = precisely the people that don't need so much support. Woke is deeply uninterested in actual problems of the poor non-academic population. High cost of living? Food deserts? Meh. That doesn't register on the high-brow radars.
- vannevar 2y ago
  >The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness... Is that really the only real-world impact? Is there no value in examining the link between how we refer to people and how we treat them? What about the affirmative action aspects of wokism---is there some impact there? If you define woke as only the people performing meaningless rituals, then of course you're going to dismiss wokeness. But not all of it is meaningless ritual, affirmative action has created real change. And I would argue that efforts to take pejorative terms out of language are worthwhile, even if some people get overly academic about it.

bpt3 2y ago

[flagged]

Jensson 2y ago
> designed to appease (and in some cases enrich) a very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population. Note that the people enriched here aren't the poor minorities, it are the self proclaimed leaders of these movements that gets high positions in governments and companies and thus enrich themselves. There is no value in making those grifters richer, even though there is value in helping poor people.
vannevar 2y ago
Is it an "enormous amount of resources"? How do you think it compares to the amount of resources historically put into racism, including all the waste and lost opportunity costs? In my experience, most people complaining about wokism are projecting their own annoyance at language policing into some kind of massive social problem. But I'm open-minded, and if you have a good argument that the resources put into wokism far outweigh the losses from racism, I'm happy to listen. PG's essay makes no effort to present that argument.
- bpt3 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - vannevar 2y ago
    So your point isn't so much that language policing costs a lot, it's that it doesn't provide any value. But what if it does? What if the way people talk publicly about other people does impact behavior? Do you think the social stigma attached to the n-word, and the consequential reduction in its public use, helped contribute to equal rights? What about slurs against gays, or Jews? Maybe there is some value in policing language after all?
    - Jensson 2y ago
      Language policing costs a lot, but its invisible since its the cost of everyone updating themselves and spending time rethinking what to say. That is worth many billions of dollars in lost time, and since its a moving target like we see with other words constantly getting updated it will never stop, its an ongoing cost we constantly pay for this.
      - vannevar 2y ago
        >Language policing costs a lot, but its invisible since its the cost of everyone updating themselves and spending time rethinking what to say. How often do you think the average person actually has to change their language? It seems like it would be a pretty tiny fraction for the vast majority of people in the vast majority of circumstances. On the other hand, if you're a professor of history or a public official, it probably does cost some of your time. But in those cases, doesn't it also provide value?
        ctoth 2y ago
        Not sure how frequently you create a new Git repo but every time I do I am given some weird moralizing thing about the branch name.
      - Earw0rm 2y ago
        Is the same true of other forms of manners, table behaviour say, or are they actually encoding something useful and pro-social? My guess is, if I'd had to learn to use a knife and fork and typical Western table manners at 35, it'd remain a small stone in my shoe for life. Which is to say, not using certain language might always grind our gears a little. I notice it, certainly don't always use the words my brain first reaches for, but not so much as to bug me. There's so much other self-censorship that we automate subconsciously or almost, it's not a big deal. For younger people? It's no deal at all, they have no more use for the R word than you or I do in some obsolete 19th century racial slur.
        bpt3 2y ago
- raxxor 2y ago
  [flagged]
notacoward 2y ago
Which performative activities, though, for which very small, fickle, and vocal portion of the population? Have you seen Musk's or Zuck's antics lately? Condemning the lesser offender(s) can gain favor with the greater, but it's useless for making any real point. Who's being performative now?

throw101010qwe 2y ago

Your interpretation is the exact problem. How many times do people need to say it? Racism is bad, what else there to say? Because he did not say it multiple times throughout the essay we are going to label him though and suggest and at the same time conclude that the thinks wokism is worse than racism. Sheesh that’s a great imagination.

vannevar 2y ago
He spends 4500+ words talking about how bad wokism is (mostly complaining about how some people are complaining about language), and all of maybe 100 words acknowledging racism, and even then uses some of those to say it isn't as bad as the woke think. If you were writing an essay opposing a solution to a problem you really believed to be a terrible problem, wouldn't you take a little more time on why the solution was counter-productive, and maybe offer some alternatives?
- throw101010qwe 2y ago
  Was the title The Origins of Racism? You are manufacturing an issue.
  - vannevar 2y ago
    So wokism has nothing to do with racism? Don't be ridiculous. You are ducking an issue.
    - throw101010qwe 2y ago
      Clearly our views don’t align but I also don’t think anyone is ducking an issue. Racism is wrong but perhaps “wokism” makes it to be a lot worse of a problem than it really is. The article was not a history of racism or how to solve it. If anyone is moving the goal post it’s you. I will accept that we probably cannot come to terms but happy to discuss.
      - vannevar 2y ago

inglor_cz 2y ago

The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness, instead of actually doing something for the people, which should be the defining part of being left. Woke is all rituals, no substance. If anyone profits off it, it is highly educated individuals that belong to the visible minorities = precisely the people that don't need so much support. Woke is deeply uninterested in actual problems of the poor non-academic population. High cost of living? Food deserts? Meh. That doesn't register on the high-brow radars.

vannevar 2y ago
>The actual real world impact of wokism is that the left-leaning part of the elite is distracted into performative games outdoing one another in verbal righteousness... Is that really the only real-world impact? Is there no value in examining the link between how we refer to people and how we treat them? What about the affirmative action aspects of wokism---is there some impact there? If you define woke as only the people performing meaningless rituals, then of course you're going to dismiss wokeness. But not all of it is meaningless ritual, affirmative action has created real change. And I would argue that efforts to take pejorative terms out of language are worthwhile, even if some people get overly academic about it.