The Case for Apolitical Tech Spaces

martythemaniak

"apolitical" simply means "the boss's politics", nothing more. When a CEO tells you to keep politics out of the workplace, he means do not disagree with him. A worker talking about his kids being bullied for being nerds is not political, a worker talking about his kids being bullied because of gender issues... Keep those politics out of the workplace. Same here. There's politics you can freely discuss - Canada being a "police state" and "mistreating" "protestors", European hate speech laws etc. Perfectly fine and apolitical! Talk about something a little too uncomfortable for Americans and all of sudden, hey! Keep those politics out!

lazyasciiart

> If everything is political the label of “political” has no power for discernment, no ability to meaningfully partition the semantic space. It’s logically bunk, mathematically superfluous. Exactly. Strange how the author just says this and immediately moves to pretending it isn’t true.

cyanydeez

Lets just make this nuke apolitical, please

protocolture

>“But everything is political” is a cop-out I mean, even if not everything is political, almost everything tech spaces deal with is political. Usually, removing politics is the cop out, to try and bend compliance to whatever the null hypothesis political ramifications are of any particular technology. "Dont make this political" when discussing like, the ability to monitor office workers, is just an appeal to the politics of the people who gain from monitoring office workers. Therfore "“But everything is political” is a cop-out" is a cop-out

mattnewton

This article asserts a lot without backing it up. I've been convinced to take political actions as the result of thoughtful discussions with coworkers over lunch for example; even if that's rare acting like it's impossible ignores that work is a large part of our lives and political discussion matters. I agree with the author that it can take up too much space, but the argument here seems to be that because of that failure mode we must throw the baby out with the bathwater and implicitly assume the politics you infer of your boss.

aorloff

Apolitical guillotines ftw

LurkandComment

Apolitical Tech, is the goal we give machines that gets rid of humanity. That's the only way you make anything apolitical. Where there are two people, there is a struggle for a balance of power.

parl_match

> Many technical spaces have become extremely partisan, and this has lowered their utility for all parties. I make a space. I make it for me and my friends. It grows. And then people like this come knocking at my door, make a huge mess, and then whine when they get excluded. Many such cases, a tale as old as time. Ask me how I know.

nvch

A long time ago, there were discussion boards, and there was a section "off-topic" on those boards.

camillomiller

This is terrible. This is nerds having a tantrum because they can’t just play with their tech toys without having to behave like adults. That ship has sailed. Your nerdy toys are not just the pure intellectual pursuits, and puzzles, and enigmas devoid of effects on reality you would like them to be. If you don’t recognize that your penchant for solving software and hardware problems is used by the owner class to promote concentration of wealth and gain power, then you will stay forever a useful idiot to their cause. Demanding that tech discussion should stay apolitical nowadays only serves the purpose of the powerful billionaires that control you.

OgsyedIE

In defence of the claim that everything is political: fish live their whole lives with water. If fish could have discourse with each other, they'd have a great controversy over whether everything is wet. Everything humans live with is political. Apolitical tech, if it is to succeed, must eliminate the human features, like art, emotion and stories. It can be done on a technical level, but it's an open question as to whether it could avoid the problem of users voting with their feet and staying in the "politics".

daft_pink

I feel the reason why Hacker news needs to stay apolitical is simply that politics is everywhere. If I wanted to hear about politics I would just goto CNN or Fox News or CNBC. I just want to hear about technology and enjoy myself.