I don't know how strong political beliefs correlate with technical ability, but from my anecdotal evidence, the people I work with are highly competent and not very political.
While highly political people I know don't seem to work in tech.
While highly political people I know don't seem to work in tech.
I mean, we’re doing anecdata here, but that doesn’t match my experience at all
So assuming it's possible in principle to be "not very political," the real question is how disengaged, uninformed, or lacking in understanding do you have to be for your statement to be true in itself, rather than a "quite political" statement. For myself, I think if someone is disengaged enough that they don't care who will become the next president, and there are no local political issues they will argue with someone about, they are "not very political."
> I think if someone is disengaged enough that they don't care who will become the next president, and there are no local political issues they will argue with someone about
What this is saying is that they are happy with the status quo, and they see no room for improvement, or they're not bothered if things are improved one way or another. You can be not interested in politics, but I think doing that is just supporting the current politics.
For many people, just existing is pretty political, like when an entire country has a debate and a vote on whether you should be afforded basic human rights.
I think there's something political about it, but I also believe that it could be done for non-political reasons (spiritual reasons, practical reasons, mental health reasons). As a pure narrative, it would most likely be politically motivated, but in hypothetical-land it wouldn't necessarily be. Even if there is something "political" about it, it doesn't really map to what people mean when the use the term "political." It may map to opinions about how the state should be governed, the broadest definition of political, but it's much more frequently used to refer to a particular subset of debates which are at least minimally polarizing in some way.
> What this is saying is that they are happy with the status quo, and they see no room for improvement, or they're not bothered if things are improved one way or another.
All I'm trying to point out is that it's a legitimate spectrum. When I say "someone disengaged enough that they don't care who will become the next president" it's very easy for the reader to imagine someone in shoes very like theirs and making that choice somewhat actively to not be engaged.
But in the wide world, you can be simply unable (or unwilling) to devote any energy to understanding how the current political environment relates to your life, and thereby form no opinions one way or the other. Perhaps you work 16 hours a day to support your family, or you live in a country only temporarily and don't even understand the language. This would imply the fact that you lack the resources to form a political opinion is "supporting the status quo."