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Comment by alkonaut | Hacker News Reader

There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life, and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable. Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. Because there is a message, even from quiet people. "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics.

Saying "I just play football, I leave politics to politicians" or "I'm just an engineer, I leave politics to the experts" aren't doing that. They are simply saying "I'm happy with what everyone else with an audience says". And the other people with audiences aren't experts either for the most part.

If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram.

Saying nothing even remotely political is better than completely screwing up ("Lex Notch"), but it's still the easy way out.

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>There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life.

I got up early this morning to look at the fog that had rolled across the city. Politicise that.

> and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable.

Viability is relevant to desired outcomes. What outcome do you desire? Is that outcome a political reality? Given you believe everything is politics anyway - we can safely assume yes to that question. Of course - you're going to want YOUR political outcome and for these leaders to represent your political beliefs. So - really I find it hard to believe you really want anything other than an opportunistic desire to leverage platforms to achieve your desired political outcomes. And for you to achieve that - of course you have to first successfully politicise those platforms.

Some of us - on the other hand - believe that the fewer the vectors of political co-ercion there are - the better. And also - we'd like to get some engineering done among other things - which is harder when things are politically co-opted. Making everything political detracts from quality work generally.

edit: Just to add, I'm not arguing that people shouldn't be politically active. Just because I don't want to talk about how woke a particular pull request might be - doesn't mean I won't take to the streets to demonstrate against some injustice that I oppose.

> I got up early this morning to look at the fog that had rolled across the city. Politicise that.

What are you doing to ensure that in 10 or 20 years time other people will be able to do the same? Your ability to look at the fog rolling across the city is the result of a finely balanced set of climatic factors. If it's something you cherish, it is something you should think about preserving.

> Some of us - on the other hand - believe that the fewer the vectors of political co-ercion there are - the better.

But you're happy to do nothing, other than hope that technology will fix it.

... Clearly I'm exaggerating to make a point, and I know nothing about your political beliefs, but I hope you understand the point that I'm making.

> What are you doing to ensure that in 10 or 20 years time other people will be able to do the same? Your ability to look at the fog rolling across the city is the result of a finely balanced set of climatic factors. If it's something you cherish, it is something you should think about preserving.

This is an ideology. People don't think this way, most of us just enjoy the view.

> This is an ideology.

Well, the first part is science. The desire to preserve it for others may be an ideology. It certainly requires political action.

Read my edit in my post above... you are completely missing the point.

I'm not missing your point; I was responding to your challenge.

The point is that if you wish to continue the activity you enjoy, you may well need to be politically engaged.

> I got up early this morning to look at the fog that had rolled across the city. Politicise that.

If you have been in Seoul or Beijing, this sentence automatically politicises itself. Not fog but smoke though.

Lol - I wrote that expecting the flimsiest of retorts to roll in - knowing they would be good for a laugh.

I mean - it doesn't even achieve what it's aiming for. I haven't been in either of those two cities - so by your own logic, my statement isn't political.

And either way - it can't be true that my statement would politicise itself. Statements just represent states of the world. It is humans and their beliefs that politicise them. No statement can politicise itself.

BUT EVEN IF THEY COULD...lol - this just gets better... You just got done saying that my being in another city is what is somehow causally related to the politicisation.

Your response is so far from being an intelligible thought... you need to tear it all down and start again. Go slow... maybe test it out on a family member first. Workshop it.

> ... by your own logic, my statement isn't political.

No. NOT P does not necessarily imply NOT Q.

> it can't be true that my statement would politicise itself.

Environments matter. That's why I pointed out those two cities, where your statement can deliver totally different meaning and depth, and cause totally different consequences. Does that make any sense to you?

> Your response is so far from being an intelligible thought... you need to tear it all down and start again. Go slow... maybe test it out on a family member first. Workshop it.

Thanks for the feedback.

>I got up early this morning to look at the fog that had rolled across the city. Politicise that.

"Meanwhile, those in power went on their business as usual, and I was letting them, sending a signal that I'm ok with that, or at least that I wont stand in their way".

That is just absurd, not every hour of every day can be spent in resistance of things you don't like. I doubt you were actively resisting the powers that be while you were sleeping last night, does that mean you were sending them a signal that you're perfectly happy with the way things are?

>That is just absurd, not every hour of every day can be spent in resistance of things you don't like.

No, but many hours can. If those aren't, appreciating nature (or gardening or whatever) instead, has political implications...

As someone quoted, "You might not care for politics, but politics cares for you".

True, those who don't want to do politics will still have politics done to them. But...

> No, but many hours can. If those aren't, appreciating nature (or gardening or whatever) instead, has political implications...

Sure. But also, spending time on politics has gardening implications. What is your basis for deciding that politics should be the thing that wins? Further, what is your basis for saying that politics should be the thing that wins for my use of time? I'll be involved in politics when I think the issues are important enough, and not otherwise, you got a problem with that?

I don't want politics to dominate my life, my time, and my mind. I deny you the right to tell me that it should.

> There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life, and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable.

I vehemently agree with the second statement but the first is absurd without further establishing what "politics" means in this context.

> If you have listeners you have a responsibility

Not everyone listens to admire a person or to see your own views approved. On the contrary, I don't think popularity or visibility implies responsibility. That would also not hold up to reality, restrict the dialogue and patronizes listeners.

Maybe try to convince people on the merrit of your position without treating them like children.

I would say "politics" is organising the life together in all its aspect. With this definition in mind it is pretty much linked to everyday life, in my opinion. So yeah it is pretty feasible to separate one's enjoyment of a foggy morning to taxes or LGBTQ+ rights. But in a democracy this enjoyment is relevant to the ecological policy of your country for exemple and the opinion " I want less air pollution because I like foggy morning" is for me as justified as the next guy's.

> Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending.

They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable.

> If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not. It doesn't matter whether those 1M instagram followers just like to see you do backflips on a bicycle. If have 1M followers you have influence. If you have 10M followers you are a political force. Even if you just ride bikes on instagram.

If you've got a million followers watching you do backflips on a bike then your audience is not there to hear your political opinions. It's a recipe to lose most of your audience, even the ones that agree aren't there to listen to it.

Assuming you're American, half the countries politics are the opposite of yours, most of the worlds politics are the opposite of yours. Do you really want to be hearing those peoples opinions all the time? Many of those opinions will be quite hurtful to many people.

> They do, their message is usually related to their field of expertise. A good sportsman will act as an example of how to be a good sport, how to conduct yourself when you lose, how to be a good winner, etc. A good OS maintainer will set an example through code and their leadership will show the team what is and isn't acceptable.

It's rarely that easy. Suddenly you'll be forced to either accept a code of conduct, or actively choose not to do so. The decision will be seen as a political one regardless of whether the person making the decision thinks it is.

The footballer will need to decide whether or not to take a knee during the national anthem, and by no decision of their own (it wasn't their protest!) they are now forced to take a political stance and probably motivate it. There

So in some cases you are lucky and you can "just be an engineer" or "just be an athlete" and the positions you take are harmless and apolitical "I like charities and being a good sport!". But suddenly they will be forced to take positions that are both political and controversial. The audience wasn't there of course to hear Linus Torvalds' views on equality or some footballers stance on politics or racism - but there they are. You can't follow an engineer or a footballer that isn't also a human with opinions you may or may not like. So while it's some times nice to not have to worry about politics in some context - it's always just beneath the surface.

> Suddenly you'll be forced to either accept a code of conduct, or actively choose not to do so.

A strange example considering codes of conduct are forcing people to become more apolitcal. They force politics into venues were it didn't exist before.

> The footballer will need to decide whether or not to take a knee during the national anthem

Not kneeling is apolitical, it doesn't mean you condone any stance whatsoever.

I'm getting the impression you only want political opinions that you agree with to be shared, s let's take a real political stance that isn't controversial on HN , "Should society accept homosexuality?". For me that's and easy yes and I'm sure most of HN would agree. I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you do as well, correct? Well a sizeable chunk of your country (which ever one it is), most of the middle east, most of Asia, most of Africa, most of Eastern Europe and much of the Latin America disagree (https://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-ho...). Most of the world disagrees in fact.

Are you telling me you want most of them to be spouting "We shouldn't accept homosexuality" on every video of them doing a backflip on a bike?

> Not kneeling is apolitical

Is it? Who decides that? The athlete might not even know what political position they are taking. Or they might be seen as taking the opposite position as the one they think they are taking. It's all in the eye of the beholder. As soon as enough people believe that not adopting a CoC or not kneeling IS in fact a political stance/statement - then it also is. At that point, it doesn't matter whether a player says "I don't want to take any political side here so I'll just stand, thanks". It's out of their hands. This is an exaggerated example (the CoC one is more reasonable) but I hope you get my point - whether or not you take a political stance might not even be deliberate, or conscious. Some times it might be better to at least do it consciously then.

Now you've expanded the definition of political so much I simply don't care if something is political or not, the word has lost all meaning.

You've also completely avoid my question, do you want the majority of the world who don't think society should accept homosexuality to be voicing their opinions more?

> You've also completely avoid my question

I didn't understand it tbh, and I still don't...

I don't consider all opinions to have equal value but I do value people being able to express opinions that I disagree with. That doesn't mean someone should be voicing opinions about e.g. homosexuality in a place where it has no relevance (Typical context: a github issue discussion). In those contexts I just expect everyone to be tolerant/inclusive. And as usual "tolerance" does not extend to "acceptance of intolerance".

> I didn't understand it tbh, and I still don't...

The point is to highlight your hypocrisy. You say you want influential people to be more overtly political but you really only want people you agree with to be more overtly political.

> That doesn't mean someone should be voicing opinions about e.g. homosexuality in a place where it has no relevance (Typical context: a github issue discussion)

This was my point all along, it seems like you do agree that there is such a thing as being apolitical. So why is context only important now? Why is this political position out of context on a GitHub discussion but in context for a football player or someone doing backflips on a bike?

> Suddenly you'll be forced to either accept a code of conduct, or actively choose not to do so.

Funnily, it would allegedly require me to be active to not accept a code of conduct. I would disagree with that.

These code are nothing new and formerly often called something like netiquette or something. Some guidelines a community agreed upon and could be leveraged for common ground in cases of disagreement.

The difference to modern examples of COCs is certainly that they were mostly not mandated upon users. At that point, they become as interesting to users as terms of services. Somthing not on your mind you pay no attention to.

Since most COCs also include some drivel about strict enforcements, learning processes and other completely unrelated topics, I tend to just passively ignore them.

Many of these are also blatantly lying. What better way to champion inclusivity by banning behaviour deemed inconform? While even underlining that conformity is required? I would require an explaination here.

I wonder why people that tend to argue that everything is political are so keen on my and others conformity? What should I answer to that? Sorry, I cannot comply, I need to champion diversity?

> it would allegedly require me to be active to not accept a code of conduct. I would disagree with that.

Once you reach a certain amount of attention, the question will be raised, and at that point not adopting an explicit CoC will be met with questions and seen as an active political stance. I don't know if I think that's fair - but it's the way it is.

> I wonder why people that tend to argue that everything is political are so keen on my and others conformity?

I'm not sure who you mean or which conformity you refer to here.

True, at that point it is a political issue. And I mean those that would take an issue with not adopting a ruleset that allegedly is mandatory, but isn't really. And yes, that would be my stance against this innocent question.

> Many of these are also blatantly lying. What better way to champion inclusivity by banning behaviour deemed inconform? While even underlining that conformity is required? I would require an explaination here.

In case you are actually interested and don't just want to support a certain political position, this could be a quick introduction: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

> "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics.

Sigh. Are you posting this Twitter meme seriously or is it a joke? It doesn't even stand up to light intellectual scrutiny.

As for actors, musicians etc blabbering about politics, the things they say tend to be elitist, disconnected and uninformed. Don't think it does the world any good, apart from highlighting just how far removed they are from the common man.

>Sigh. Are you posting this Twitter meme seriously or is it a joke? It doesn't even stand up to light intellectual scrutiny.

Actually, far from a Twitter meme, it's a millennia long empirical observation.

It's only the disconnect from power of today's citizen that make them thing they can be uninvolved with politics (and that this doesn't send a political message and have political impact).

The very definition of a citizen was one who was active in politics (the inverse being someone preoccupied with their own private matters, an "idiotis" in Ancient Greek, and the etymology for "idiot").

> The very definition of a citizen was one who was active in politics (the inverse being someone preoccupied with their own private matters, an "idiotis" in Ancient Greek, and the etymology for "idiot").

Um, OK... but not everything is a political act. It's just a ridiculous meme I see now and again.

Yeah, it's not literally really about everything (e.g. taking a shit) being political, it's about how all kinds of stances are political (even a stance like "I don't care about politics, I focus on my own personal stuff" has political implications).

The same can be said for politicians.

> If you have listeners you have a responsibility

I've noticed the people who make such claims tend to have horrible politics that need a signal boost. There's a reason why you need to latch onto the success of others and resent those who will not play ball. Have fun with that.

@coldtea: If your ideas are so virtuous, you wouldn't need such fervent help. They're not.

>I've noticed the people who make such claims tend to have horrible politics that need a signal boost.

And people who say the above are ok with the established politics, no matter how horrible they are.

And people who say that want to guilt-trip the entire civilization into self-destructing.

"Used car salesman meets Jehovah's Witness" approach to talking about issues can work for larger injustices, but doesn't generalize well when everyone wants to air their personal grievances. Pushing a message onto every possible forum isn't going to help much, but is sure as hell going to grow divisions and just tire people out.

>And people who say that want to guilt-trip the entire civilization into self-destructing

And people who say that haven't noticed that the "self-destructing" is going quite well by itself, and that some guilt-trip is actually needed to avoid it...

No, a lot of this guilt-tripping and politicizing is actually contributing to the self-destruction - it divides people more, makes them less likely to care about each other, and sucks out the oxygen in the media, so that the big problems cannot be discussed productively.

The eras when "big problems [were] discussed productively" (and something was done about them) were the eras when the division was at its highest.

E.g. the division between the civil rights people and those that wanted a segregated society.

Or the division between the anti-war movement in the later sixties and the "patriotic" pro-Vietnam war establishment.

Else, the bipartisan consensus (or small differences) just leads to the incremental management of what's there, and no real initiative for change (e.g. like the last 3+ decades regarding the environment or inequality).

>If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not.

It's this line of thinking that leads to people with minor platforms telling me to do things I already agree with, but in the most self-defeating and insultingly paternalistic ways possible that I wind up questioning my own positions because they advocated for them so goddamn poorly.

>Saying nothing even remotely political is better than completely screwing up

I think we don't understand just how badly the well-intentioned idiots are screwing it all up. See also: every Twitter fight between team We Know Best, and team Go Fuck Yourself.

>If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not.

Yes, and speaking only about things you have expertise on rather than talking about "values like democracy or human rights" is a very much responsbile way to treat and show respect to your audience

> There is no feasible way to separate politics from everyday life, and leaving "politics to those who knows about it" isn't really viable. Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending. Because there is a message, even from quiet people. "Not politicising" is a political act and statement as well. There is no dodging politics.

People act like "everything is political" is such a stunning insight. I disagree. It's as stunning an insight as saying "everything affects everything else". Yeah, sure, everything does affect everything else. Everything affects everythign else in mysterious and unknowable ways but that isn't particularly interesting and it isn't clear how that fact should affect one's behavior.

This makes my skin crawl. The presumption here is that a person can calculate how that person's beliefs and the expression of those beliefs (i.e. actions) will benefit/harm the world and act accordingly. Yeah, no. People think they can do that, but they're deluding themselves. In order to do that, you'd have to model the world. We can't even model a single person.

> Saying nothing even remotely political is better than completely screwing up ("Lex Notch"), but it's still the easy way out.

No, it's the hard way out, which is why most public figures babble endlessly about politics.

Hannah Arendt:

> The main characteristic of any event is that it has not been foreseen. We don’t know the future but everybody acts into the future. Nobody knows what he is doing because the future is being done, action is being done by a “we” and not an “I.” Only if I were the only one acting could I foretell the consequences of what I’m doing. What actually happens is entirely contingent, and contingency is indeed one of the biggest factors in all history.

>Anyone with a platform whether it is sports, tech, culture should consider what message they are sending.

Sorry, "should" is not in my vocabulary.[1]

>Because there is a message, even from quiet people.

A very useful lesson I learned at a young age. You are in control of your words and actions. You are not in control of how people interpret them, and shouldn't stress too much about it.

The other useful lesson: People will interpret a vacuum, unless they've trained themselves not to. They will find meaning when there was none.

>If you have listeners you have a responsibility for what you are saying whether you like it or not.

Yes, but you are not responsible for things people are assuming from your silence.

I've been hearing this "celebrities have an obligation to speak up on things beyond their expertise" since I was a kid. In most cases, I believe the person saying it merely wants the celebrity to say something political that the person agrees with.

Along the lines of communication skills (the URL I link to below): Your message is devoid of almost any nuance, and is loaded with absolutes. I would recommend reading any good book on communications if you want people to take you seriously.

(And yes, I responded somewhat in kind. I could have taken it further, by pointing out that by taking your stance, you are contributing to the increased polarization in the world, and adding to the culture of no compromise deadlocks. If it is off-putting, you will have a window into how others see your comment.)

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19492234

I hope you are trolling.

No, I am not going to give any credibility to random Instagram "influencers".

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