[johannes1234321]

Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

New or improved technologies shape communities.

Ignoring that is a political statement as well.

Just see how online media has changed discourse, how Amazon changed retail business, how business analytics change the way businesses work, how always being connected changes relations, ...

When developing technologies one can be Wernher von Braun "(where the rockets land and whether they contain explosives is) not my department" or one can consider consequences.Both are a political position, with consequences.

[drstewart]

>Technology and the consequences of using technology are inherently highly political.

So what stance does The Art of Computer Programming take on communism?

[ttepasse]

Knuth in the wake of the Iraq war and the Abu Ghraid crimes asked some "Infrequently Asked Questions" which are of course highly political. He kept this page linked on top of his home page. And in 2022 he wrote a postscript with more political questions.

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/iaq.html

[drstewart]

I didn't ask about Knuth.

I asked about the book. Everything is inherently HIGHLY political, thus this should be an easy question.

[strogonoff]

Perhaps you are exaggerating. At least, my original comment was “not talking about politics is a political position”, not “everything is HIGHLY political”.

However, yes, some people would say that, for example, almost everything is political to some degree. I don’t know if I agree with them entirely. In case of Knuth, they would probably say that the choice of what to write about in the book (just like the choice of whether to be a computer scientist in the first place) cannot be divorced from his politics. Like the choice of someone to work in nuclear science or environmental science or “anything that pays good money” is informed by individual’s political positions. “Politics is water” is a great metaphor.

[johannes1234321]

Between the four books there is a lot of paper being printed, with chemicals which have to be sources somewhere.

But a bit more serious there are different angles to this:

One is that the formalization Knuth did, is basis for the way other research on computer science has been setup.

His work on TeX as part of writing the books has great impact on how scientific reports are being written, which themselves have consequences.

And then there is all the consequence while implementing technology. How optimisations by better algorithms enable data mining, replacing manual labor, ...

Now of course impact differs. Not everybody is building V2 rockets (as well as Saturn rockets) like von Braun did, but there are many wheels in the machinery.

I myself am a small wheel in building database engines. The software is used by sports clubs to manage their members, shop owners to manage their inventory, companies to run their ads and air craft carriers to replicate strategic data across the ship, so that if one part is damaged, the other can still operate. If I were to leave, the organisation would continue developing, but the work has impact.

[acdha]

That’s a very narrow redefinition of both technology and politics, and even there it’s only a step away from discussions about how automation affects millions of jobs, how daily lives are shaped by what’s allowed by the software which large companies or governments build, or how amassed data can be misused in ways which wouldn’t be possible without efficient algorithms.

[egoisticalgoat]

Is communism the only political topic? Or does whether or not The Art of Computer Programming talk about accessibility in software not constitute a political opinion?