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Comment by t_mann | Hacker News Reader

> meetups about "how to node.js apolitically" are sidelining people who want "how to node.js pro-socially."

This statement did turn me off a bit. "how to node.js apolitically" would in practice ofc just be "how to node.js", which should be perfectly fine for a computer club, just as a pro-social computing course. Maybe someone wants to use their computing skills for social good, maybe they want to use them for bioscience, smart contracts, home automation, or maybe they just want to create a website for their corner shop. I feel like all of those should have a place in a computer club.

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For me it was the part where the author claims that "computing is political", therefore computer clubs should be too. Computing is very much not political. It's a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical. If you want a computer club, have a computer club. If you want a political club, have a political club. But I think forcing the two together weakens both pursuits.

Tools are political. They're constructed to fulfill people's needs.

"Political" doesn't have to mean 'relating to a political party or election'.

I think computer is political in the way art is inherently political. Even if a piece of art isn’t explicitly about politics (an oil painting of a sunset), it’s still born of the lived experience and thoughts and emotions and politics of the artist.

Not everyone revolves their life around politics.

Everybody does. Every day.

According to Wikipedia, Politics:

> is the set of activities that are associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals

Not knowingly; they are though.

No, they're not, except to those who want to drag them into politics. For people whose lives revolve around politics, everything is politics, but that's just them.

so not political

Having been part running of three +1000 members computer clubs with a weekly attendance of about 10-150. I would rather say that if you are not political you do not have a club.

One of the standard by laws for clubs here is "not bound to political party", i.e we had a few extreme right wing people and many left wing and a great mass of moderate.

GNU GPL is political, every choice you do in computers have a political component. You choose if you allow piracy, black hats, surveillance, alcohol, meat, veganism etc. These are political decisions that will effect the feel of your club, even if you actively do not care about a decision.

The important part is that the club needs to survive and it only does that if you manage to find new people who wants do stuff, and put partisanship aside.

> Computing is very much not political.

This is obviously false with a tiny bit of consideration.

If your definition of "computing" is narrowly constrained to the abstract mathematical reasoning then sure.

But if we consider a broader scope, then computers, the internet, and how the software we use to interact with them are designed is absolutely a political topic due to how it shapes not just interpersonal interactions, but also the kinds of business models that are possible and, downstream of that, modern society as a whole. Among other issues.

A firearm is a tool.

Do you think firearm ownership and usage is free from politics? Do you think a gun club is free from politics?

> Do you think firearm ownership and usage is free from politics?

Of course not.

> Do you think a gun club is free from politics?

That depends. Is it a "let's talk everything about guns"? Is it a "let's go to a shooting range and shoot guns" club? There's a place for people to discuss things, there's a place for people to do things together, and neither might be a good place for people willing to be political in the sense of some people trying to coerce club members into specific beliefs, or trying to make the organization pursue some social cause.

Want to have a social gun club? Find or start one specifically about gun-related social causes! There's space for that too!

Really, all this "political" vs. "not political" boils down to people wanting to "talk shop", discuss technical or practical or emotional aspects of something, without feeling coerced to join causes and judged for not joining them, or otherwise have their standing as a human being questioned by some zealots.

> Is it a "let's talk everything about guns"? Is it a "let's go to a shooting range and shoot guns" club?

I know of no club where the purpose is merely to talk about guns. Gun clubs are typically organised shooting ranges. In Australia, if you own a firearm, I believe you are legally required to belong to one, and have some kind of minimum attendence per year.

And yes, they discuss politics, and they veer strongly towards conspiricy paranoia.

I expect it's the same in the US, especially with its NRA stranglehold the culture there.

I'm not sure if you're aware of the Port Arthur massacre in the 1990s in Tasmania. Probably small beer if you're from the US with it's weekly atrocities. The PM at the time instituted a mandatory gun buy-back/hand-in/confiscation scheme to reduce the number of firearms in the community, which was broadly seen as a Good Thing (by people who don't own firearms. ie. the majority of the population).

Talk in the gun-club is that the massacre was conspiricy perpetuated by the Gubmint in order to bring in tighter gun control laws, confiscate firearms, etc.

> Computing is very much not political. It's a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical.

A nuclear warhead is a tool. Like any tool, it can be used for various ends, both political and apolitical.

See how silly that sounds? Some tools have sufficient impact that they transform society, and that is inherently political.

The personal is political, but also, yes I agree that you don't have to weight the politics 100% of the time.

I don't think the author is talking about starting a computer club, they're thinking about a social club. To get people in the door at a social club you need them to think "that'll be people like me."

So "Democrat ladies who lunch and write patches for Mastodon," and "Trump supporters who drink beer and write surveillance software," or "meditation group (Haskell-only)" would work great, much better than "Your coworkers, but you've never met them before."

where do I sign up for meditation group (Haskell-only)?

Everyone knows why these 'X but apolitical' clubs start. It's because there was an X club but then someone decided there had to be a Code of Conduct maybe influenced by a previous member of X club doing something inappropriate or unacceptable. Then the Code of Conduct slowly expands to being the entirety of what the club concerns itself with. In time, all club time is spent navel gazing. If the CoC doesn't do it, there will come a time when the club has to take a stance on opposing an invasion in Gaza or something and that'll be the thing to do it. You can't even suggest not doing this because that's also meta-discussion. There is no way to fight this meme without engaging in the meme.

It's the same story over and over again. I think it was around the Donglegate era that this stuff started becoming really popular but that's how it is.

Rent alone is expensive enough, having rules that micromanage the many ways people have reasonable conversation and give basic presentations is only going to get your space killed from people wanting to stir up drama. There are enough real problems running these, there's no point in creating more of them.

This has not been a problem in my many years of club meetings. There will always be drama not this though. Never micromanaged behaviour though, but that is a very undefined term.

I read that mostly to mean that the club shouldn’t be about once specific thing/topic so it has broad appeal to anyone interested in computer

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