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Comment by hannob | Hacker News Reader

I honestly never understood what people expect who want tech "without politics".

Technology is a crucial development impacting society. Of course discussing tech is political. How could it not be?

There is something to what you’re saying, and things like what the EU is doing as a response to the impact or big American Tech companies is probably what is actually interesting to a lot of us. Because it directly impacts how we’re supposed to build solutions as we need to implement more and more bureaucracy into the way we handle data, often in ways, that we need a corporate lawyer to audit because we’re software engineers. Note that I’m not saying this is good or bad, but I do think it’s interesting because it impacts us.

What I don’t personally think is interesting is American politics. The sort of thing where there are two sides, or anything where anyone might write “liberal”. As a European, where we have multiple parties work together, and where many what Americans consider “liberal” is basically the ultra Christian Right wing, is sort weird and uninteresting. Not that I don’t think things like identity politics and what not aren’t important, but maybe not something to be discussed here on HN.

One of the things I find frustrating about talking to Americans online is they often seem to assume your opinions must be defined by the same left-right divide that characterises their politics.

You accidentally signal to them republican or democrat group membership, and with it enemy or in-group status. The ill fitting political box you are then placed in colours all further interactions with that person and all your political opinions are then taken as read.

Sure if you work at faamg then yea, but random ass / small computer oriented company has nothing political.

0therwise your definition makes everything political, thus is useless

> 0therwise your definition makes everything political, thus is useless

I think you’re missing the point that everything is political. The definition isn’t useless, it’s just forcing people to think about the consequences of their actions rather than purely thinking about the technology they’re working on.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Ring

Maybe something software engineers should adopt.

There is no meaningful political discussion possible here. In tech, truth matters (a practitioners can share something meaningful). In politics, the truth is essentially irrelevant especially when one side has vastly more resources than any other (the best practitioners are the best liars). Discussions are full of the rehearsal of talking points and astroturfing -- it is boring or give rise to unnecessary emotions.

I suppose you could have an RSS feed of OSS software and libraries and rebroadcast press releases of new versions of software. There are some tech things without politics, but once you get into higher levels such as discussing Uber's business model, politics comes up. Holmes's Theranos trial was as much politics as tech, but still falls in the "tech" space because it impacts future startups.

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