I think it depends what part of "tech" you work in. I worked for a small electrical engineering firm building software to configure our devices. We were pretty apolitical overall, but I guess you could say we had a slight interest in legalized marijuana because our product was being used in the grow industry. Even then, no politics ever arised except for the occasional quip during a meeting.
The place I currently work does software in a trade industry (think electricians, plumbers, etc) and there is pretty much no politics either.
Outside of "big tech", I think the political portion decreases dramatically, at least for the employees. I'm sure owners have to focus on tax laws and such, but as an employee writing code, not so much.
Agreed, if one's stance is to prohibit discussion in furtherance of the status quo, that's as political as anything else. Kneeling during the national anthem or trying to stop people from kneeling, same/same.
There are sensible reasons why discussion of politics was looked down on in a professional setting. Didn't like that much because it can be interesting. But lately I see the benefit pretty clearly.
"No politics" is both a political stance, and what counts as politics is itself political. For example, some count "please call me 'they'" as political; others just common courtesy.
> "Tech isn't political" is itself a political stance. (And a hard to support one, IMO.)
Funny how the only people who say this are the people who want to drag politics into everything. Tech is no more inherently political than, say, electrical engineering. That is to say, not at all without tortured logic that could be applied to almost anything.
I do! Just like a movement to reform electrical engineering would be.
That does nothing to make the wider industry inherently political. It also is a much narrower sphere of politics, in that it is about reforming how software is made and thought of, which is relevant to the industry itself in a way that broad social issues are not.
The place I currently work does software in a trade industry (think electricians, plumbers, etc) and there is pretty much no politics either.
Outside of "big tech", I think the political portion decreases dramatically, at least for the employees. I'm sure owners have to focus on tax laws and such, but as an employee writing code, not so much.