It all started with the unofficial godot discord admin dealing with some chuds and people turning their ire towards the Godot Foundation staff instead.
Since Godot has stubbornly remained on the Xitter nazi bar as a valid space for PR and social media interaction and dared to promote the Wokot hashtag and reiterate their progessiveness, the reactionaries infesting that space are now piling on their socials and harassing everyone they can get their eyes on.
Examples
- https://x.com/LifeArtStudios/status/1840230152254509067
- https://x.com/Grummz/status/1840162056928145740
- https://x.com/madewithgodot/status/1841118786964840618
Anyway, solidarity with the targets of harassment. I hope they finally realize that Xitter is a lost cause.
Update: Godot is being review-bombed
Fortunately the reactionary backlash seems to be having the opposite effect
as soon as you say the word “woke” you have ruined the conversation.
And as soon as you have “banned” a word from conversation regardless of context, you have ruined your credibility (in my eyes, obviously).
I did not suggest banning any words.
To understand why I’m opposed to the word “woke”, you must first acknowledge this fact:
Sometimes people have different definitions of the same word.
If you’re willing to accept that, then it logically follows that using a word that people have different definitions of will cause more confusion than understanding. If our goal in speaking is to convey understanding, then that is best accomplished by avoiding words where people have conflicting definitions.
We’ve all learned that there are facts and opinions, but there is a third category: definitions.
If you watch for it, you will see that many disagreements boil down to nothing more than disagreeing about the definition of a single word. If we temporarily avoid using that word, suddenly we find ourselves in agreement, or at least having a better understanding of each other.
This is a pretty common challenge in philosophy with a very obvious solution:
Define the controversial word (or words) at the top. It’s done all the time in science articles or legal documents.
You can even compound it to point out it’s your version (like calling it Lefty-woke).
By avoiding it, imo, you let them win and “claim” the word, since in their worldview, everyone is now using it like them.
Having said that, this is just my approach, I think the issue with politics is that people assume everyone is using the same language. You got to affirm or confirm that first.
Also, ironically, I think we are talking about the same thing, just using different words lol.
I hear you. It’s no good to just cede ownership of a word and allow others to define it however suits them. But… it’s Twitter, getting into a good faith philosophical discussion about the definitions of words ain’t going to happen, so in many cases it’s better to just not bring up the controversial words at all. Guess there’s pros and cons to each.
I mean, there are plenty of words that are used almost exclusively to cause offensive. Swears and slurs. Often it can be debatable whether or not a word counts as a swear or slur, but it’s usually pretty clear. I prefer to avoid using words that are intended to cause offence.
The word “woke” doesn’t seem to fall into these categories, but it’s still a term that seems to have been polarised by both groups. I don’t think that word would ruin a discussion that was already political, but it would definitely cause a discussion to become political.
As far as one group is concerned, being “woke” is inherently good and means being aware of modern issues and accepting of marginalised groups.
As far as the other is concerned, being “woke” is requiring all media to have this representation and lashing out when it isn’t inserted in a certain way; thus, you can be supportive of lgbt+ rights and the rights of marginalised groups while still being vehemently “anti woke”.
Because of this conflict in definitions it’s understandable that the Twitter manager might want to use this term, and it’s understandable that people would be against it.
I feel the polarisation of this term may be being done for the drama people on both sides to farm engagement.
“Woke” is a problem because people have different definitions, and no matter what Webster or any other authority says the definition is, people will continue to have differing definitions.
How can we reach understanding when we don’t even agree on the definition of words?
This is way to nuanced to deal with on fucking Twitter. If you use the word “woke” on Twitter, expect a lot of misunderstanding, talking past each other, and bad faith arguments to follow.
When something really matters all we have is conversation, or violence. Words do not actually have innate definitions - they have usages that vary between individuals and between peoples over time. If we can understand what the person we’re talking to means then maybe we can come to understand each other.
How can we reach understanding when we don’t even agree on the definition of words?
I actually think this is the reason why there is so much polarization, we are literally talking different languages.
I’m not saying both sides are the same, the opposite actually, one side is willing to use standardized definitions or just use new ones specific to the discussion/debate.
The other side realized they can make people believe in a fascist fantasy by changing the meaning and more importantly, the emotional response behind the meaning.
And it’s not new, this is what it always comes down to. I argue for socialism because I am arguing for cooperating and equal ownership, others argue against it because they (for whatever fucking reason) hear tyranny cause you know, regulations means less freedom.
