The Economist on how woke images appeared on Google's AI search engine

Alphabet, Google's parent company, lost $80 bn in market value in a day amid the controversy over Google's Gemini.  In overcompensating for diversity the AI model has depicted erroneous woke images of historic figures and at times refused to show images of white people.  Examples include black Vikings, an Asian Founding Father of America, a female pope and a Native American British king.  Google has withdrawn the tool to make improvements.  Sundar Pichai, Google's boss, told staff that Gemini had "shown bias" which was "wrong."

~ The Economist, March 2, 2024

Rick Rule on competing with woke portfolio managers in the energy sector

I think you have a whole collection of portfolio managers investing or decapitalizing the oil industry for woke purposes.  I love competing with people who don't compete.

~ Rick Rule, interview with Dan Ferris, Stansberry Investor Hour, 31:40 mark, December 19, 2022

Jonathan Haidt on cancel culture

I'm a big fan of the philosopher John Stuart Mill who said, "He who knows only his side of the case knows little of that."  That is, in order to really understand anything we have to look at multiple perspectives, we have to have different viewpoints pushing against each other.  That's what we do in universities.  And that's what we've always done in my career as a professor, until around 2014-2015.  All of a sudden, it became much more hazardous to question.

If you questioned, if you even tweeted about a study that challenged the received wisdom on race, gender, transgender - there are a couple of sacred issues - if you even suggested there was another side, huge social sanctions would rain down on you on Twitter and other platforms.  And here's the key thing: When people feel even a little bit of intimidation, when they think, "if I speak up, terrible things are going to happen to me of unknown size" (it could be nothing, it could be a thousand tweets).  It's that little bit of intimidation - that's what makes people go silent.  And when critics go silent, the group gets stupid.

~ Jonathan Haidt, social psychiatrist, NYU Stern School of Business, "'Uniquely Stupid:' Dissecting the Past Decade of American Life," Amanpour and Company, 4:40 mark, April 18, 2022

Doug Casey on the impact of DIE and ESG on corporate cultures

The concepts of DIE (diversity, inclusion, and equity) and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) have inundated corporate culture like a tidal wave of sewage.  They’re viewed as being good, positive, and something that everybody should observe when they should be thrown out with the garbage.  They’re purely destructive. 

One of the causes for this, other than our corrupt education system, is that corporations today are usually not run by entrepreneurs.  Entrepreneurs, the founders, generally have one way of thinking.  Later, managers take over.  The company is then run by suits, heavy with lawyers and accountants. They’re what the French call “petit fonctionnaires.”  These are people with bureaucratic mindsets, better at backslapping and backstabbing than creating value, who come to consider themselves as masters of the universe.  It’s not good.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on Why Woke Corporations Will Go Broke," International Man, June 14, 2022

Anonymous employee on Disney's woke culture

I’ve been here for 35 years, and I only have a few years left before I can retire.  I’m trying to keep my sanity, but it’s very difficult.

~ anonymous employee, "Longtime Disney Cast Member Speaks Out: ‘We Are Ashamed to Work for This Company’," The Epoch Times, April 8, 2022

Bill Maher on the divisiveness between the Left and Right in the U.S.

We never do anything.  Half the country's having a woke competition deciding whether Mr. Potato Head has a dick and the other half believes we have to stop the lizard people because they're eating babies.  We are a silly people.

~ Bill Maher, "New Rule: Losing to China," Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO), 2:40 mark, March 12, 2021

Larry Fink on stakeholder capitalism

Stakeholder capitalism is not about politics.  It is not a social or ideological agenda.  It is not ‘woke.’  It is capitalism, driven by mutually beneficial relationships between you and the employees, customers, suppliers, and communities your company relies on to prosper.

~ Larry Fink, 2021 BlackRock shareholder letter, "No need to be ‘woke,’ but BlackRock’s Fink says CEOs need to address societal issues," MarketWatch.com, January 18, 2022

Kevin Duffy on Netflix and woke content

Over the past five years, Netflix has taken on $10 billion in debt to create a lot of woke content.  What happens when the woke bubble eventually bursts?  Will Netflix be sitting on a collection of disco records that end up in a landfill?

~ Kevin Duffy, July 21, 2021