Woke 2

pleiadian download #2

One of my running under-theorized theories (that, naturally, I still psychotically want “credit” for calling, whatever credit means, I think in my head it’s being invited to conferences or invited to expand on whatever idea in publications more articulately than I’m doing here) is that we’ll eventually have a “Woke 1.0”-style culture war about technology. I mean, it’s just been in the water for a long time. Just like we’ve always had backlashes against feminism, we’ve also always had techlashes— but I mean, a techlash that has the features of peak woke. Moral panics, opportunists selling “workshops” about how to stay human. I’ve historically been too hard on Jon Haidt—a guy I don’t want to make an enemy of, for whatever it’s worth, please chill with the age-gating stuff man—but in a way, he’s like the Robin DiAngelo of anti-tech sentiment. I just mean that in a market position way—This has been coming in the mail since before the gen AI stuff—see: what’s happening to Hank Green (he accidentally said “I appreciate the pushback” in a YouTube video and now his fans are freaking out, but really, this is becoming about what’s socially sanctioned, I think Ruby Justice Thelot on “Americans love chat and hate AI” is also important here). Like Woke 1, I think Woke 2 is predicated on perfectly legitimate complaints—I’m speaking here about the conversation—not saying “people concerned about AI or tech are somehow ridiculous”. I don’t think tech companies should get free rein to do whatever. I started noticing the whole tech-as-culture-war thing back when I started paying attention to events like NatCon, there was this weird tension between the right wanting to bring Big Tech to new cities in an attempt to revitalize the economy—see: Miami, and then talking about “transhumanism” derisively in the keynotes. It was obvious to me that the next “cutlure war-y” topic would be tech — that’s an unsustainable tension — the right would go luddite, the left would go luddite, then there’d be right and left coded techno-optimists. And much earlier, when dating app burn out expanded beyond that one Nancy Jo Sales article and incels started making headlines beyond Elliot Rodger. Wasn’t enough not to get rolled into Woke 1 though, or be a side quest issue. I think Covid created a real market opportunity for this, because we were all pushed inside, I mean, it was a great time to make a career for yourself as a media personality for a lot of reasons, and so once Covid restrictions started to relax, it was a good time to say, “Oh, it’s the phones.” Indeed, it’s the “phones” (winks at the audience) and not the fact we’ve all been forcibly inside for years. In that sense it is the phones but what do you think I had the bigger impact. I maintain, and have maintained since 2021, 2022, that the issue with “Dimes Square” was not so much that they were obnoxiously daring everyone to call them fascists in some kind of metapolitical game of chicken but that they were the first visible (in the sense that people who write articles saw them) subculture to hang out in person during a deeply alienated time and that was triggering. This, to me, was an important signpost. And then you have this perfect opportunity to come in and blame the phones. AI progress couldn’t have come at a better time—now there are real stakes— we will see confessions (go look at Hank Green again), purity tests (already seeing it, go look at Hank Green again), consultants (already seeing it), victims who are real but weaponized (the Children, the climate, everyone losing their jobs), status games (I have a dumb phone~*~). Again, I have to remind you guys, I’m not talking about “the reality on the ground,” I’m talking about how I think the conversation will go, I’m talking about social mechanisms, I’m not giving a history, I’m talking about a media language. I’m in my 30s and remember various other tech panics - around Yahoo, Google, Facebook. Beyond the surveillance stuff, beyond Cambridge Analytica much later - I also remember college acceptances rescinded over social media posts, anyway, I digress, all other anti-woke commentators are wrong about “woke 2,” I am right about it, I have always been right about it, I am the transparent eyeball, I am nothing, I see all.

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