Aral Balkan
Technology is political.
If your project or organisation has a “no politics” clause, you’re saying you’re happy to exclude people whose very existence is political in our societies.
It’s only defensible if you’re coming from a point of privilege where the dominant politics are to your advantage so you can take them as given.
There is no such thing as “no politics”; there is only “no politics other than the politics of the status quo that I benefit from, which I’ve internalised as normal.”
Estarriol, Cat owned Dragon
@aral 99.9999% of no politics clauses actually mean, we are out and out fascists but you are not allowed to comment on that as you build improved IBM Punch Cards for their concentration camps.
Alexander Hay
@aral "No politics please!" is the sort of argument a politician would make.
Professor_Stevens
Actually, as a person who was a politician for several years, I can tell you that "no politics" is something people trying to feel noble say to avoid responsibility for taking a position. I became a politician so I could fight for a position and, yes, against another one. I needed all the allies I could get. Every group, person, or institution that said, "We're not political" was saying, "We're of no use to you at all."
Yes, politics please! Lots of it!
Aral Balkan
Now fuck off.
😘
cood pood
Alexandre Oliva
Alexandre Oliva
DCent
DCent
Aral Balkan
@OddDev 👍
Kai Klostermann
Alexandre Oliva
Alexandre Oliva
Marko Vujnovic
@aral Female hair is either long or political. Sexual orientation is either heterosexual or political. Gender identity is either cis or political. Clothing is either gender stereotyped and boring or political. City infrastructure is either car-focused or political. Energy is either fossil fuels or political. Education is either white christian propaganda or political.
Everything follows the same pattern, tech included.
Scott Matter
Paraphrasing from the field of research, there’s no such thing as apolitical, everyone’s got a political position whether we acknowledge it or state it explicitly or not. The opposite of politics isn’t “no politics” it’s bad politics.
aspragg
@dawngreeter @aral The status quo is never "political". Change is political.
rob
@dawngreeter @aral true conversation on a doorstep a few years ago. "We're voting Conservative. My father was Army, my husband was Army, and we're non-political".
Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
Aral Balkan
@bzzzwa 💕
Petr Kučera
@aral Thank you for saying it!
Janneke
@dawngreeter @aral
Male hair is either short or political. Male faces are either shaved or political. Male clothing is either a suit or political. You either wear shoes or are political. Relationships are either strictly (or serial?) monogamous or political. Your software is either backdoored big-tech surveillance or political. Your social media is either big-tech spyware or political. Your education is either classroom and strictly year group based with a fixed mandatory curriculum and tests or political. Your diet is either full of animal cruelty or political.
#FreeSoftware
#poly
#vegan
#democraticeducation
#barefoot
Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
@schmittlauch @aral Well that one works, at least when implemented like in Pokemon Gameboy:
> Are you a boy or a girl? [Yes] [No]
The evil is when it's an enum.
Trolli Schmittlauch 🦥
Aral Balkan
@spz I think you misunderstand. This isn’t about turning your issue tracker into r/politics. It’s about some organisations and projects barring anything they deem “political” from affecting the decisions taken by the org/project. It stems from a particular “no politics” project rejecting gender-neutral language because it is political. In other words, it’s about orgs/projects rejecting certain people and their needs because it js deemed “political”. Which is, itself, political.
S.P.Zeidler
@aral ok, so how do you say "so your polity will have elections and you care a lot, and one or two other persons on our lists may, too, but the rest of us don't live there and don't care, put a sock in about how great 'your' politician is, this is not your canvassing venue"?
Just because the US right have weaponized the words "politics" to mean "everything of any societal impact" and "polite" to mean "I can harass anybody not white+male" we can't use them any more? Which can we use instead?
Marko Vujnovic
@kccqzy @waldoj @aral Conversation topics are either comfortable and familiar or political.
kccqzy
@dawngreeter @waldoj @aral This reminds me why I hate politics, something that seems to consume every discussion and every topic.
Aral Balkan
@spz You express is by stating clearly, as you’ve just done, that one of the political stances your organisation/project takes is that bigotry is not allowed.
S.P.Zeidler
@aral sorry, bear with me. I'm not steeped in US usage. How do I express the one without implying the other?
I want to express e.g. "I think trans/racist/gender slurs are nasty and I don't want to see them, ever" without writing a sermon and without inviting rules lawyering of the "but you didn't list this kind of nastiness".
"Be polite to everybody" used to be a short expected behaviour description. It's not meant to say "you can't complain about being treated unfairly". So how?
Aral Balkan
@mintplague You seem nice.
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