Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by wolverine876 | Hacker News Reader

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The hidden secret is the life - the oppressive discrimination - many minorities, especially black persons, have been experiencing for generations, without most white people being aware of it. When you take that red pill, when you are open to the facts, it is shocking what has been happening right under our noses. You can't unsee it. A simple suggestion: Just talk about it with people who are black; if you don't know many, you can see how the blue pill world is created.

> Woke in my experience is more used to describe progressive people and their opinions

Like any hot cultural term, it has become loaded with plenty of other meaning. However, to a degree I think you are talking about the reactionaries' use of the word, which they have adopted to politicize it - to use their endless (and successful) rhetorical technique of attacking the messenger; of saying 'it's just liberals' to shift the discussion from the actual problem, racism. For example, you can see the same technique used for climate change.

I first read it as in “stay woke”, a reminder that your survival depends on seeing through people’s bullshit.

And the most harmful bullshit is that racism is a personal failing rather than a system working as designed; designed by people who will not peacefully let it go.

> the most harmful bullshit is that racism is a personal failing rather than a system working as designed; designed by people who will not peacefully let it go.

Yes, an essential point. But it's also a personal choice.

> I think you are talking about the reactionaries' use of the word

That's a fair point, yeah.

> When you take that red pill, when you are open to the facts, it is shocking what has been happening right under our noses

I think the problem there for me personally is, that "being red-pilled" was kinda adopted by the right wing, so I would never label myself red-pilled when I learn what kinds of things black people experience because of being who they are. But yeah, if we keep current politics out of our context, then I get what is meant with being red-pilled.

So essentially, red-pilled means "I learned(or at least think so) something which the mainstream(god I hate that word in the political context) does not know."

Furthermore, if what you think you've learned is objectively true, then you were red-pilled, if it's objectively wrong you just invented a new conspiracy theory.

My first encounter of the red/blue pill dichotomy was the first Matrix film. With social media like reddit, this idea spawned via memesis and certain communities began imitating their interpretations of what it meant for them. For example, the contrasts between r/theredpill and r/thebluepill and all the other subs it may have spawned as well, eg: r/mgtow.

Richard Dawkin's wrote a fantastic book called The Selfish Gene on exploring the difference between memetic and mimetic theory that's worth the read.

Redpill in the conservative context so often involves replacement theory.

> So essentially, red-pilled means "I learned(or at least think so) something which the mainstream(god I hate that word in the political context) does not know."

I think the definition is narrower. I think it's something that completely shifts your persecptive, that is relvelatory. I know things about certain policy issues that the mainstream doesn't - or about IT, but it's not the same.

> if what you think you've learned is objectively true, then you were red-pilled, if it's objectively wrong you just invented a new conspiracy theory.

This is the nature of all knowledge - there is no way around thinking critically, using all the skills (empiricism, post-modernism, etc.); it's never easy.

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