I am one of those “woke communists”: Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds is again back with a hot take (or controversy?) 🐧

So, it all starts with Linus Torvalds sharing his views on The New York Times web page experience.

With a public post on social.kernel.org, Linus complained about the advertisements and poor user experience on the New York Times website. Moreover, he was annoyed that one had to call the website's team to cancel the NYTimes subscription.

Here's what it looked like:

But wait, this looks entirely irrelevant to our news title, right? 😕

Kind of. There's more to it.

So, Linus continued explaining to some followers that he did not mind subscribing to the NYTimes, but with the annoying experience, it became a deal breaker.

In one of those comments to his post, a user also mentioned that The New York Times was not worth following and labeled the NYTimes as "woke communist propaganda."

Here's what the user had to say:

While this was irrelevant to the context of the original discussion, Linus Torvalds replied with a firm take on his belief in such opinions.

Here's what he mentioned:

I think you might want to make sure you don’t follow me.

Because your “woke communist propaganda” comment makes me think you’re a moron of the first order.

I strongly suspect I am one of those “woke communists” you worry about. But you probably couldn’t actually explain what either of those words actually mean, could you?

Furthermore, he also shared:

I’m a card-carrying atheist, I think a woman’s right to choose is very important, I think that “well regulated militia” means that guns should be carefully licensed and not just randomly given to any moron with a pulse, and I couldn’t care less if you decided to dress up in the “wrong” clothes or decided you’d rather live your life without feeling tied to whatever plumbing you were born with.

And dammit, if that all makes me “woke”, then I think anybody who uses that word as a pejorative is a f*cking disgrace to the human race. So please just unfollow me right now.

While this was an exchange of words on social media, his reply is being seen as controversial by some people, some labeling him as "leftist" (whatever that means).

Of course, others think Linus Torvalds correctly expressed what he wanted to say, and there was nothing wrong with it. If you know Linus Torvalds, he usually gets straightforward with what he wants to express.

Like he recently got furious about a poorly executed pull request for Linux 6.3.

Here, we do not discuss the specifics. Of course, we are all about Linux and open source.. and Linus Torvalds, too 😉

But, as one can see from the replies, Linus Torvalds looks like someone who does not like the term "woke" used to demean something. He clearly respects what others choose to do and "couldn't care less" about it.

💬 What do you think about Linus Torvald's take on the whole "woke communists" ideology? Share your thoughts in the comments below.