"Obama says Democrats need to avoid being a 'buzzkill'"
18 Oct 2022, 3:06 pm
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/17/politics ... s-buzzkill
Here is my take: this is only "shocking" if you are not someone who has met actual Democrats. I don't mean people that vote Democrat, I mean people that vote in primaries and volunteer at events.
We almost all laugh at the woke types. It was "political correctness" before "woke." Obama is not even the first Democrat to say this in the past 6 weeks - James Carville gave an interview where he said something like, "the party has a vocal minority who writes dictionaries for a living" or something like that.
However - they are there. Believe it or not - my wife is one. She does the whole "pregnant persons" thing. Yes, she went to a private expensive school. Yes, I make orders of magnitude more than she does despite having gone to a public in state school (I don't tell her that I privately gloat about that).
This is also another fun fact you realize if you start meeting Democrats - did you know about ~20% of Democrats are against abortion? Yup! A fun little reality about the Democratic party is that the presidential candidates are all picked by Southern Black Christians.
And guess what? They are about as liberal as Southern White Christians.
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
When I think in those terms, it does kindof make sense to me to extend that to my neighbor. I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone and if it makes them feel better, I should do it.
18 Oct 2022, 6:21 pm
If someone wants to post online "People with a vagina" or "those who get their periods" without mentioning the W word, who cares, let them phrase it anyway they want. If you want to say woman, go right ahead, no one is forcing you to not say it. Your identity as a woman is not erased.
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18 Oct 2022, 7:25 pm
League_Girl wrote:
If someone wants to post online "People with a vagina" or "those who get their periods" without mentioning the W word, who cares, let them phrase it anyway they want. If you want to say woman, go right ahead, no one is forcing you to not say it. Your identity as a woman is not erased.
I agree - however what concerns me is the outright nastiness of some people.
There is worrying stream of thought that if someone isn't willing to date a trans person, they are transphobic. Crazy? I have seen one op ed in CNN and one professor wrote something that could be interpreted as such.
I also think people need to let up a little on people that aren't up to speed. So much of the Civil Rights era was about forgiveness - remember that George Wallace who stood on the schoolhouse steps went on to win most of the Black vote when he became Alabama governor again later. He recanted and was forgiven.
It seems with the internet there is less forgiveness and more flat out going after people.
I know for certain that if I said something some group didn't like and someone could find me on the internet, I would lose my job. They would bombard my company with complaints and because they are wary of any controversy, I'd be fired.
Thats not a real society with freedom of speech.
There really should be some new law protecting people from social media overreach - but it would never happen.
18 Oct 2022, 8:46 pm
Yeah it's crazy. I'm straight, that means I only want a relationship with guys. If I meet a guy but he turns out to be a she but hadn't started to come out yet, this would be a deal breaker, why? Because she will transition soon and will start taking hormones and will look more and more feminine. Plus it would be selfish if me to expect them to stay male for my sake.
Or let's say you want to have kids so you meet a lady (assuming you're male) but it turns out she doesn't have a uterus, you want bio kids of your own, you like sex. But she has a penis. You dont like dicks. She can't give you kids because you both have male parts. You want to have kids naturally. Not use surrogate moms or adoption. Plus you want sex with a vagina, not with another penis because ur not gay.
I'm sure there are people who wouldn't date someone who can't have kids. My mom's childhood friend wasn't able to have kids so her husband divorced her because he wanted them of his own blood and his genes.
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19 Oct 2022, 12:21 am
stratozyck wrote:
https://www.cnn.com/2022/10/17/politics/obama-pod-save-america-democrats-buzzkill
Here is my take: this is only "shocking" if you are not someone who has met actual Democrats. I don't mean people that vote Democrat, I mean people that vote in primaries and volunteer at events.
We almost all laugh at the woke types. It was "political correctness" before "woke." Obama is not even the first Democrat to say this in the past 6 weeks - James Carville gave an interview where he said something like, "the party has a vocal minority who writes dictionaries for a living" or something like that.
However - they are there. Believe it or not - my wife is one. She does the whole "pregnant persons" thing. Yes, she went to a private expensive school. Yes, I make orders of magnitude more than she does despite having gone to a public in state school (I don't tell her that I privately gloat about that).
This is also another fun fact you realize if you start meeting Democrats - did you know about ~20% of Democrats are against abortion? Yup! A fun little reality about the Democratic party is that the presidential candidates are all picked by Southern Black Christians.
And guess what? They are about as liberal as Southern White Christians.
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
When I think in those terms, it does kindof make sense to me to extend that to my neighbor. I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone and if it makes them feel better, I should do it.
Here is my take: this is only "shocking" if you are not someone who has met actual Democrats. I don't mean people that vote Democrat, I mean people that vote in primaries and volunteer at events.
We almost all laugh at the woke types. It was "political correctness" before "woke." Obama is not even the first Democrat to say this in the past 6 weeks - James Carville gave an interview where he said something like, "the party has a vocal minority who writes dictionaries for a living" or something like that.
However - they are there. Believe it or not - my wife is one. She does the whole "pregnant persons" thing. Yes, she went to a private expensive school. Yes, I make orders of magnitude more than she does despite having gone to a public in state school (I don't tell her that I privately gloat about that).
This is also another fun fact you realize if you start meeting Democrats - did you know about ~20% of Democrats are against abortion? Yup! A fun little reality about the Democratic party is that the presidential candidates are all picked by Southern Black Christians.
And guess what? They are about as liberal as Southern White Christians.
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
When I think in those terms, it does kindof make sense to me to extend that to my neighbor. I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone and if it makes them feel better, I should do it.
It is important that Fortune 500 companies are "woke" because they run the world and have been using their power to force it on us. "Woke" is also a big thing in a lot of academia, they are influencing the generation that will rule the world.
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20 Oct 2022, 6:14 am
stratozyck wrote:
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Large corporate HR departments may have co-opted and popularized the new etiquette, but they certainly didn't originate it.
Corporate HR departments probably got it from their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) consultants, who in turn most likely were influenced by various marginalized-group studies programs at their schools, which in turn were influenced by various mostly-grassroots marginalized-group rights/liberation movements.
The new rules of etiquette originated in the interaction between different marginalized-group rights movements.
I know this because of my own off-and-on involvement in various political movements.
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Last edited by Mona Pereth on 20 Oct 2022, 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
20 Oct 2022, 6:57 am
stratozyck wrote:
It seems with the internet there is less forgiveness and more flat out going after people.
I know for certain that if I said something some group didn't like and someone could find me on the internet, I would lose my job. They would bombard my company with complaints and because they are wary of any controversy, I'd be fired.
Thats not a real society with freedom of speech.
There really should be some new law protecting people from social media overreach - but it would never happen.
I know for certain that if I said something some group didn't like and someone could find me on the internet, I would lose my job. They would bombard my company with complaints and because they are wary of any controversy, I'd be fired.
Thats not a real society with freedom of speech.
There really should be some new law protecting people from social media overreach - but it would never happen.
Unfortunately I think this is intrinsic to today's large-scale social media platforms, simply because of their massive size and the impossibility of good, high-quality moderation of anything so big.
What's needed, IMO, is a revival of old-fashioned message board forums like Wrong Planet.
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21 Oct 2022, 12:05 am
stratozyck wrote:
There is worrying stream of thought that if someone isn't willing to date a trans person, they are transphobic. Crazy? I have seen one op ed in CNN and one professor wrote something that could be interpreted as such.
Hopefully this particular "stream of thought" will die out soon.
Trying to dictate other people's sexuality just doesn't work. It doesn't work when religious right wingers try it. It didn't work when radical feminists tried it (e.g. Against Sadomasochism, back in 1982). And it doesn't work when the more fanatical trans activists try it.
People's sexuality is what it is. I hope the relevant trans activists will be more capable of learning this than the afore-mentioned religious right wingers and radical feminists.
There do exist people who are attracted to trans people, or who at least don't find trans people unattractive. There do exist pansexuals -- I'm one of them. But we are a minority and probably always will be.
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23 Oct 2022, 8:54 am
I strongly doubt that most trans people actually believe it's "transphobic" for a person not to be sexually attracted to trans people. I suspect that the minority who do say stuff like this have been artificially amplified by anti-trans activists.
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23 Oct 2022, 11:27 pm
Mona Pereth wrote:
I strongly doubt that most trans people actually believe it's "transphobic" for a person not to be sexually attracted to trans people. I suspect that the minority who do say stuff like this have been artificially amplified by anti-trans activists.
Anti trans activists have nothing to do with it, they're just the loudest and most obnoxious faction and everyone is afraid to cross them because of how hard they'll come after you and how far they'll take it. I'm poly and there are a ton of these people in that community, there is no right wing conspiracy to make them more visible there, they're just there and everyone goes along with them out of fear.
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24 Oct 2022, 3:19 pm
Dox47 wrote:
I'm poly and there are a ton of these people in that community
Since approximately what year?
Also I'm wondering if this might be a difference between West Coast and East Coast poly cultures?
I'm under the impression that lots of things have tended to get carried to more-fanatical extremes on the West Coast than on the East Coast. This is a decades-old tendency. For example, back in the early 1980's, I remember hearing about lesbian groups that specifically excluded bisexual women. Such groups weren't much of a thing here in NYC, but, apparently, were a big thing in other major cities, especially West Coast cities (and also in Boston, for whatever reason).
NYC has long had a stronger mind-your-own-business ethic than a lot of other cities. This might have something to do with the fact that many NYC residents ride jam-packed subways and buses every day, which makes minding one's own business a necessary survival skill.
Anyhow, admittedly I've been out of touch with the poly community for over a decade. But I find it hard to imagine any attempt to dictate other people's sexuality (beyond limiting it to consenting adults, with appropriate safe-sex precautions, and encouraging good communication) being even remotely entertained, much less prevailing, in the NYC poly community as I remember it.
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25 Oct 2022, 6:53 pm
ASPartOfMe wrote:
It is important that Fortune 500 companies are "woke" because they run the world and have been using their power to force it on us. "Woke" is also a big thing in a lot of academia, they are influencing the generation that will rule the world.
Fortune 500 company motto:
"The world needs more useful idiots."
27 Oct 2022, 3:05 pm
stratozyck wrote:
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
When I think in those terms, it does kindof make sense to me to extend that to my neighbor. I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone and if it makes them feel better, I should do it.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
When I think in those terms, it does kindof make sense to me to extend that to my neighbor. I have no desire to intentionally hurt anyone and if it makes them feel better, I should do it.
Yes it's a known problem. Some call it performative wokeness.
Performative wokeness enables privileged people to reap the social benefits of wokeness without actually undertaking the necessary legwork to combat inequality.
You'll find that sentence copied and pasted all over the Web.
I'd go further and suggest that it's often used as an obfuscating tactic by those whose true intentions are quite the opposite, e.g. the wealthy, whose wallets say a lot more about their actual commitment to equality.
But I think it's also sometimes just used as a back-covering tactic against accusations of sexism, racism, etc. The BBC often makes me laugh when it says this kind of thing:
A criminal calling themselves Stephen Jones took up the tenancy and paid the rent and council tax. They never moved into the property, but used access to it to sell on for £196,000 - well below market value.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bed ... s-63392025
27 Oct 2022, 8:26 pm
stratozyck wrote:
My strong belief is that what we call "wokeness" or "political correctness" is actually mainly based in Fortune 500 companies. Large companies are nuts on signaling and inclusion - it makes sense because they are often global companies that have to have people of vastly different religions, cultural backgrounds, etc work together. So I see "wokeness/political correctness" as mainly a product of large corporation HR departments.
Because you know what? If your coworker wants you to call them a pregnant dude, you do it. If your coworker likes it when you wish them a happy insert whatever religious holiday, you do it. If your coworker gets married to a goat, you buy them a gift and wish them good luck.
Because what matters most to Fortune 500 companies is we all get along so we continue the gears of profit.
I appreciate you recognizing that large companies are going to find acting "woke" to be in their own best interests because of employee concerns, and not because of outside pressure. That is my impression also: it simply makes business sense to foster an environment that is not only welcoming to all different types of employees, but also makes them feel advocated for. How much might be performative (as brought up by another poster) would be a much more complicated discussion.
The other stuff, I wish you wouldn't use the term "Democrats" so broadly. As you noted, you don't intend to refer to the average voter, but a small and vocal subset. Please, then, say "a small and vocal subset." I know it's extra words, but it helps reduce the over generalization us "regular" Democrats encounter.
Overall, I do agree that a strident minority of the party shows a lack of grace towards people with different thoughts and speech patterns, and that this minority does a lot of long term political damage. I spend a lot of time with friends trying to get them to see that.
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28 Oct 2022, 12:14 am
Mona Pereth wrote:
I strongly doubt that most trans people actually believe it's "transphobic" for a person not to be sexually attracted to trans people. I suspect that the minority who do say stuff like this have been artificially amplified by anti-trans activists.
I have seen some trans activist be loud about it and I have seen others say this is a straw man. I mean are these just right wing trolls pretending to be trans activists then saying this stuff?
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