Not really, look at the schedule for 34c3. Much more interesting things and less politics.
And it also has felt more and more forced in the last couple years
How is it computer adjacent, keep in mind, it's a talk about how the media communicates things...
Surveillance was the political topic of 2020, so there was quite a few talks about that, migration is the political topic 2025, so there are a lot of talks about that
There are also other unrelated things which do not have a lot to do with computers, like "all creatures welcome".
> Surveillance was the political topic of 2020, so there was quite a few talks about that, migration is the political topic 2025, so there are a lot of talks about that
There is one important difference: surveillance is a deeply computer-/hacking-related topics while migration isn't.
So I would say a talk about surveillance (as long as it is relevant for hacking topics) typically has its place while it is much harder to find a reason why a talk about migration has relevance for a hacking conference.
Surveillance has relevance to core CCC/hacking topics (privacy is a central topic against which hackers fight), so I can understand why the organisers decided to include this talk in the schedule: they considered it to be a good idea that the audience should also get a "non-computer perspective" on a topic that is highly relevant to hackers.
But I agree that for the decision to include or not include this specific talk, the organisers have to apply an exceptionally good judgement: if they make a "wrong" decision here, people will immediately (rightfully) complain that the talks are too political (or if they "wronged" by non-inclusion of this talk, the other side will complain that important topics are omitted).
Not sure the number is up from last year (I think there are fewer O/T talks this year even) but there are many talks that have nothing to do with hacking even if some of them might pigue my interest, such as the following:
Then there are topics merely having "computer" in them like everything in this day and age but aren't about hacking, and it's disappointing because I know for a fact other talks had to make room for these:
I think you're missing the ethos of the event in general, and the fact that you are pointing to tracks in the ethics track or the arts track in particular.
I don't get your point