[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.

[fragmede]

Regardless of skin color, a group with N members vs a group with N+1 members has the added advantage of that one extra person; assuming that person isn't a negative influence on the group's productivity. That's one extra set of eyes, one extra point of view, one more set of hands. Regardless of skin color, that extra person is going to have different life experiences leading them to have a different perspective from the rest of the group.

[rayiner]

Fine, say instead of joining the white group, I sub in for one of the white people. Woke people would still say that it’s an improvement because of increased “diversity.”

[jodleif]

Do you think a bias for selecting people that look similar to you is racist as well?

[rayiner]

Sure. But that’s just the old “don’t discriminate” attitude, which is why I worded the hypothetical to exclude that. What distinguishes “woke” ideology is that it posits ”diversity” is better even if the lack of diversity isn’t due to discrimination. Universities aren’t saying that they need diversity to counteract the discrimination that’s happening in admissions.

This idea manifests in media, for example adding a characters of different races to historical contexts where the lack of diversity isn’t due to discrimination. (E.g. adding a random African character to medieval Scandinavia in Frozen 2.)