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Comment by beaconstudios | Hacker News Reader

I think that holding onto the idea that software is apolitical is untenable. Social media companies and large corporations try to toe this line and have been widely rebuked for it (Google trying to get ICE contracts, for example). I think the idea that "everything is political" is taking it too far, but so is the idea that providing material support to any comers is apolitical.

Bear in mind that I'm talking descriptively rather than prescriptively here. I have my own opinions but I can also observe that political neutrality as a concept is waning.

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Ok so its political, what if this political take where we encourage openness and interconnectivity is superior to the political take where we are reactionary? What if it literally is a winning strategy?

Im not saying it is necessarily- but i think to get past the division you have highlighted (apolitical universality vs political conservatism) there is perhaps a way to look at the various approaches and determine what approach would be technologically, logistically, and politically advantageous.

Let us let go of the idea it is apolitical, what now?

I do think that we should look at these choices through a utilitarian lens and consider both the immediate and long term impact of such decisions. I do think that innocent Russian civilians will inevitably get caught in the crossfire with sanctions, which is unfortunate. I still believe that it is a moral good to penalise colonialism and other unethical activity through withdrawal of material support because this increases the cost of such actions. I'm not sure what justification there could be that continuing material support for an expansionist government during an invasion has positive utility, it smells like an argument for consistency to me but I'd be happy to be corrected.

Something that comes to mind is the argument against aid NGOs in places with dire poverty and hunger. When an NGO comes to your town, where you are trying to build a farm business, and delivers months worth of free rice, can you afford to run your business? Similarly, can any russians make successful software as a service that analogues FOSS offerings? No they cant, because the alternative is available and free.

Remove the free rice and you satisfy your egos necessity for first order moral resolution via punishment- bad people dont get rice- but as for second order effects? Perhaps now it becomes feasible to build a sustainable farm (or apache competitor)

The aid NGO question comes down to whether locals can build a self supporting economy and whether the aid is hampering economic development - but it isn't a binary question because you can subsidise farmers or reduce aid commensurate with local supply.

I'm familiar with second order effects, and nth order effects and nonlinear causality. If we restrict Russia's access to Apache Web server, sure, they will eventually develop a local equivalent. So, over time they transition from being disadvantaged to simply leveling the playing field. That's a pretty good outcome, especially if many more open source projects could withdraw from Russia.

Then we end up with a [citation needed] on providing material support to a badly-acting nation being a winning strategy.

IBM is still notorious for their willingness to work with the Nazi regime.

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