Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by lupusreal 893 days ago
"Common sense" means focusing on first order effects. Don't prod your coworkers about their race because that will obviously make them feel uncomfortable.

Woke, in this case, is focusing on Nth order effects.. do prod your coworker about their race because abstract reasons justified by theories about social abstractions... Thinking about group effects that might kick in at the societal level instead of the effect you're having immediately on the individual sitting right in front of you.

The former, first order common sense thinking, is what normal people intuitively do. Focusing on the individual when dealing with an individual is the common sense approach. The second, focusing about abstract secondary group effects when dealing with an individual, is something people get trained into doing by sociology class in university, or being lectured on the internet, or being indoctrinated into a racist ideology. A traditional racist or a modern woke person doesn't see individuals, they see representatives of abstract groups that must be treated in some way calculated to have Nth order group effects.