[rayiner]

My litmus test for what’s real versus manufactured outrage is running things by my CNN-watching, Biden-voting immigrant parents. Most woke ideas get a derisive snort from my dad, though he’s quite worked up over racial preferences, affinity groups, and the idea that you can’t be racist towards whites. My mom, meanwhile, got very worked up over the 2020 riots and mass immigration from Latin America. She approvingly texted me Trump’s ban on DEI trainings in the federal government.

These are people who consume zero right wing content, so it’s not like they’re being socialized to be mad about stuff that they wouldn’t otherwise be mad about. In fact it’s the opposite—they would be madder if CNN wasn’t careful to hide the full scope of what woke people think and believe.

[jodleif]

What is this full scope?

[rayiner]

For example the collection of beliefs that led Google to engineer an AI that draws pictures of black Nazis. That did percolate up to CNN, because it was so silly. But all the stuff that these engineers learned about race in college that led them to make the AI this way doesn’t make it to CNN.

[jodleif]

What are you talking about? Be specific? What beliefs?

[rayiner]

This is like asking a Roman to "be specific" in describing early Christianity (and doing so in a couple of sentences). What, like you're not seeing what I'm seeing?

But let's pick one example: woke people believe that skin-color diversity is both meaningful and a good thing in and of itself. They would say that, all else being equal, a group of people with a mix of races is better than a group of white people, even if there was no evidence that the white group was that way due to discrimination.

[jodleif]

Do they? I thought the woke thing was more about discrimination, but I don’t know much about this. The statement makes sense though, why do you think it’s wrong?

[rayiner]

“Discrimination is bad” is what we learned in the 1990s. “Woke” is a label we use to refer to this new thing we have now: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2007308/northwestern...

The statement is wrong because skin color is superficial and meaningless. Here’s a thought experiment: say you have a group of white people, and then I (a “brown” person) join them. Woke thought posits that, through added “diversity,” the group has become “stronger.” But to be “stronger” it must be “different.” What non-superficial characteristic about me are you inferring about me that leads you to conclude I changed the group by joining it? Any answer to that is going to be racist.