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Comment by atemerev | Hacker News Reader

Leaving politics aside allows e.g. me to collaborate productively with e.g. ultra-left socialist bicycle-driving UBI-supporting people. If we leave politics aside, we can agree to disagree and still work together on something useful. If we will discuss politics, our time will be spend in unproductive discussion without actually changing the world in any direction.

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> ultra-left socialist bicycle-driving UBI-supporting people

I think that's the problem right there. I suspect you didn't intend it to sound that way, but that part of your statement comes across as dismissive and condescending.

I point that out only to suggest that there's no reason why people with different political views can't work together, as long as they respect each others' views and don't discuss them in a demeaning way. I don't think that necessarily means you're "putting politics aside", and in fact I think that can be harmful in some cases.

I am not saying this in any diminutive context. For some of my friends, all these are the points of pride.

I think for many people political views are quite tightly bound up with their sense of identity and therefore in practice political debates tend to end up being quite personal and negative. I tend to avoid politics except with very close friends for that reason and therefore agree with atemerov that working relationships should be preserved.

Exactly this! My political views may be on the extreme side, but I want to work with all kinds of people regardless of their political views, because it is humanizing and there is so much common ground. If ignoring a subject allows that it seems worth it to me.

> If we will discuss politics, our time will be spend in unproductive discussion without actually changing the world in any direction."

If I shared this belief, I don't think I could support democracy.

What does one have to do with the other?

Supporting democracy means you vote to the best of your knowledge, not that you have to engage in what usually are unproductive conversations with strangers.

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