[ryandrake]

Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political. If you're lucky enough to be one of the fortunate people on earth who are not under attack by political forces or who benefit from status quo politics, I'd encourage you to simply reflect on that good luck and try to ignore the "politics" that others are deeply affected by and care about.

[esperent]

I partially agree, but as a non-US user of the English speaking internet, the issue is with specifically US politics and social issues being everywhere. It drowns out all attempts at discourse for anything else, and Americans, including people here, seem uniquely incapable of nuance in their thinking when it comes to politics.

So, while I fully agree with your stance that banning political discourse is support for the status quo, I also think that it's reasonable to ask for it to be toned down a bit, especially when the politics and social issues of one country is basically drowning out everything else.

All that said, I'm talking mostly about HN or other community forums here. The owner of Notepad++ has the right to put whatever they want into their software, and if we're discussing that here on HN then it's an occasion where discussing politics is valid.

[bsder]

> the issue is with specifically US politics and social issues being everywhere. It drowns out all attempts at discourse for anything else

Unfortunately, US politics also drives tech issues elsewhere like the EU. For example, local data control is a big thing that some of us have been screaming about forever but nobody paid attention to--until US politics made it a hot button issue.

And, to be honest, if the EU would get off its ass and at least try to foster some alternatives, even those of us in the US would benefit. EU alternatives would mean that people in the US could finally vote against the megajillionaires with their wallets.

> Americans, including people here, seem uniquely incapable of nuance in their thinking when it comes to politics.

Bullets and beatings don't leave much room for nuance regardless of country.

[direwolf20]

The EU is trying but these things have to happen bottom–up. The EU Council or EU Parliament isn't a software development shop. They allocate funds to groups like NLNET who allocate them to a selection of the projects they get proposals for. NLNET can only allocate funds to something an individual or small group proposes. If you want to propose something, please go ahead.

Capitalists can also start software businesses and sell their software, but those are all in Silicon Valley because the money is there because the US has a privileged financial position.

[bsder]

> NLNET can only allocate funds to something an individual or small group proposes. If you want to propose something, please go ahead.

Well, gee, let's look at the sponsorship page for KiCad: https://www.kicad.org/sponsors/sponsors/

I see a couple EU companies, but no EU governments. It takes a paltry $15K to be a Platinum sponsor.

I picked KiCad because PCB design is critical military infrastructure, the alternative programs are almost all under non-EU jurisdictions and could be pulled, and KiCad is both open source and local desktop to top it all off. This is exactly the kind of quiet, unflashy toil that desperately needs support from a government entity.

Lots of areas need support for open source alternatives that are controlled by proprietary software that might vaporize. I picked PCB design because it's an easy target. Cadence and Synopsys have locks on VLSI design domains that could get yanked from the EU. VHDL tooling is still disastrously poor. Everybody could use an alternative 3D modeling kernel (the EU is a little better here because the dominant proprietary kernels are from Dassault Systèmes and Siemens). I'm sticking to software as the domain because the purpose of the funding is obvious (pay developers, duh), but it also applies to things like small manufacturing and maintaining domestic supply chains (but the purpose and focus becomes a lot messier).

And yet, everywhere I look, any project I pick, crickets.

I don't expect the EU to front run, but something like KiCad is 3 bloody decades old.

> those are all in Silicon Valley because the money is there because the US has a privileged financial position.

And yet you had the rise of Akihabara as an electronic parts mecca which then later got eclipsed by Shenzhen. And that's not even talking about the fact that the modern computing sits atop a mountain of stuff developed out of the VLSI Project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VLSI_Project).

All of those occurred because their respective governments threw money around.

Sure, maybe you won't create another Silicon Valley hare, but, perhaps, just perhaps, you might create a relentless, open source EU tortoise that slowly displaces the proprietary software. The EU is good at slow--relentless, not so much.

Sadly, a continual state of inertia and sclerosis and failure around tech seems to be historically European: https://www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/the-eurochip/

[direwolf20]

There is an EU initiative to bring in chip manufacturing but it's not related to open source. For sovereignty purposes, airgapped software or locally made software is as good as open source and it's usually higher quality.

There are already alternatives to KiCad for PCBs. And I repeat myself: NLNET can only rule on the proposals it receives. Have you proposed to spend a year improving the KiCad UX?

[bsder]

> For sovereignty purposes, airgapped software or locally made software is as good as open source and it's usually higher quality.

I don't agree. Even if proprietary software is somehow "better" (and I don't concede that automatically), proprietary software is always at the risk of disappearing--see: VMWare after the Broadcom purchase. Your critical software being open source means that you have the right to fork/copy and just keep going without needing to do anything else. Proprietary software disappearing means that you need to file legal paperwork and get a judge to care and then wrench the source code out of someone's hands.

The failure modes are vastly different.

And this is before we get into the whole undocumented, proprietary storage formats issue.

> Have you proposed to spend a year improving the KiCad UX?

I am in the US. Can a US citizen propose that? I would assume that this has to come from EU citizens, no?

To be honest, if I could get KiCad some funding simply by filing some paperwork, that's probably a good investment of time.

> There are already alternatives to KiCad for PCBs.

Not really. Autodesk bought Eagle. Renesas bought Altium. Cadence bought Orcad. There's a whole host of stuff controlled by China. Most of the other free things aren't even close to KiCad.

I guess maybe PADS, since it's owned by Siemens? But I haven't bumped into a PADS user in a very long time--I wonder if it's considered legacy or just far too expensive.

[joe_mamba]

>And, to be honest, if the EU would get off its ass and at least try to foster some alternatives, even those of us in the US would benefit.

What exactly do you want the EU, the Brussels based institution, to do here? Because AWS didn't come into existence because Uncle sam came in and twisted Bezo's hand telling him to invent a hyperscaler that will conquer the world.

EU's lack of comparable domestic alternatives is a consequence of the failure of its entrepreneurship and free market in the SW private sector, and nothing that EU institution can do about it to magically fix this since the solution is not MORE regulatory interference form government bureaucrats who don't know how the internet works.

You might be able to force innovation if the governments can throw money at the problem if the VC sector is lacking, but they can't force economies of scale and mass adoption without a China style great firewall, in which case you'd then have even bigger issues.

[devkit1]

I am an American and I make a very conscious effort to appreciate social and political nuances. And I go out of my way to point out nuances to others who, in my opinion, oversimplify their statements. It could be argued that the expression of stereotyping Americans as lacking nuance, itself lacks nuance. I believe really most people are similar in that we have our biases, differences in context and experiences. We can all try our best to be as nuanced as possible.

[anticodon]

What really do Americans know about Ukraine or Taiwan? E.g. can even 1% of US population show Ukraine on the world map (without using Google Maps)? Could they do it before 2022? Before 2014? Do they know anything about Ukraine or Taiwan history? How many Americans know a single foreign language?

If tomorrow there would be a war or protests in, say, Burundi. Will Americans stay with Burundi or against it? Or with the country the media will tell them is "good" because their interests align with US interests?

I think answers to all these questions are obvious.

[esperent]

To be fair, lack of knowledge of other countries is hardly uniquely American. As an Irish person travelling around the non western world, there's a lot of people who don't know that Ireland is a country separate to the UK, or even that it exists.

[esperent]

I would say it's statistics, rather than stereotyping. I'm glad you're capable of nuance though, maybe you can teach that to some of your compatriots?

[vjvjvjvjghv]

I think that the stereotype of Americans lacking nuance around political issue is valid. Obviously, like all stereotypes, it’s not 100% true but Americans seem to feel obliged to pick one side of an issue, most of the time aligned with the worth of their choice, and then to view everything that’s happening through that lens.

Try to point out to a democrat that Trump is doing something right or to a Trump voter that Biden did something right. Most of them can’t accept that. The “other” side has to all bad. I don’t see this to such an extreme in other countries I know like Germany or Spain.

[direwolf20]

Saying Americans lack nuance is like saying Germans are bureaucratic or British have shit food. It's not true 100% of the time but it's true enough broadly enough to be a valid statement.

[andyferris]

My personal take is this is a consequence of the two-party system. In the US you can "identify" as a democrat or republican. Once you do that, you don't _have_ to think, you can let tribalism guide you.

If in another country I vote for these guys or sometimes those other guys, and once this little party that got a seat, but not really those ones, and I really hate these ones, then your "political identity" already has a lot of nuance. In Australia with preferencial voting, a single vote has a lot of naunce.

What can you get in America? Green Party supportors who "strategically" vote for a democrat? Not much else...

[nottorp]

The other problem is the US has two parties: one center right (and i'm being generous with center) and another rabid right.

It has been like that since forever. They don't know how a left leaning party looks.

[tjjuckson]

> to such an extreme in other countries I know like Germany

could you remind me what country is the afd based out of thnx

[faust201]

You do prove the extreme polarized politics. For you it is AfD vs others.

In reality it is not. It is a spectrum of parties. People vote often for smaller parties in the state and larger ones in the national.

[defrost]

Does the existence of an alt-right WannaBeNazi party in modern Germany preclude the existance of a spectrum of views within Germany and usher in an inability of a majority of Germans to express themselves with nuance though?

By all means make a considered and thoughtful point, please.

[shiroiuma]

This is a good point. What would people think if there was constant political discussion here about, for instance, South Sudan and things happening there now? I'm sure there's bad stuff going on there and it's unfortunately, but if we had constant references to and discussions about the internal politics of South Sudan, I think a lot of people would get annoyed about issues that don't affect them at all in their day-to-day lives, esp. when they're coming here for discussions about technically- and computer-related topics. That must be how it seems for American political discussions.

[LoganDark]

Do you think it's socially acceptable to ignore everything that doesn't affect you personally? Many activists would certainly have you think otherwise. As far as I can tell, fighting that habit is a huge goal of activism.

[moi2388]

Yes. Activists also don’t focus on all causes, not even most. They cherry pick whatever topic is hot in that moment. Sorry, I don’t care about that when I’m browsing something about software.

When I care about politics I’ll deal with actual politics. Reddit won’t change my mind nor the world.

[joe_mamba]

Same. I go to technical or other forums in order to pursue hobbies of interest and escape the political shitshow of the real world, not be reminded of it every step of the way. I don't want to be bombarded with their opinions on the matter, even if they were to align with my own. Virtue signaling becomes a slippery slope that only induces more division, anxiety and fatigue over those issues, while not actually helping with solving them in any meaningful way.

[LoganDark]

I find it can be appropriate to talk about politics around a project when a political situation is directly affecting a maintainer of the project or the project itself and is a genuine reason why there are delays, weirdness or other impacts somewhere. I appreciate hearing about such things for transparency's sake. It's just all the other stuff that gets on my nerves, where it's just tacking politics onto the project just because there's injustice.

For example it's very normal for the Tor project to talk about censorship and privacy. It's also fairly normal for Russian maintainers to speak out about how it's no longer possible for them to receive support due to sanctions. And I can understand if a Ukrainian maintainer has to focus on trying to survive or escape the country instead of developing their software. All of that stuff is completely fine and I wholly empathize with it. It doesn't bother me because it's not extraneous; it is directly relevant to the project. I also don't mind projects listing their preferred charities.

But I do roll my eyes when projects continue to pine on about Taiwan's independence or the genocides in Gaza. If there isn't a reason why it's actually relevant to the project, I don't think the project page is a good space to push it.

[shiroiuma]

>Do you think it's socially acceptable to ignore everything that doesn't affect you personally?

No one has the time to pay attention to every little injustice in the world. For all the people crying about Gaza, how many of them are dedicating as much energy to the wars in Sudan, Yemen, or Myanmar, or the abuses by Russian security services (like imprisoning a guy for holding up a blank card)? This isn't to say that we should just ignore Gaza or Ukraine or ICE in the US, but we need to make a choice: either we spend ALL our energy addressing every injustice in the world, until there is no more injustice left (and this means we need to stop everything else we're doing now, including keeping society running, making food, etc.), or we need to choose when and how much attention we'll devote to various issues.

[LoganDark]

I agree.

[appreciatorBus]

That may be a huge goal of activism, but activists do not get to control what other people want to do.

Activists wanting something is not synonymous with that thing being a good idea. It just means that someone wants something out of you could be good, could be very bad. No different than a sales person trying to get you to buy something.

[user205738]

> Do you think it's socially acceptable to ignore everything that doesn't affect you personally?

Yes, yes, and yes again.

> Many activists would certainly have you think otherwise. As far as I can tell, fighting that habit is a huge goal of activism.

That's their problem. As soon as you start contributing to them, you will not pursue your own goals, living your own life, but those imposed by activists or their supervisors.

It's convenient for them, you give them a political resource. But why do you need it?

[FormerBandmate]

A huge chunk of activism is pointless and annoying. Especially when every cause is lumped together into Activism (TM) and the Omnicause.

I don’t agree with them and I don’t think they should be in my software, or dealing with anything they don’t understand (for instance crime, homeless people, geopolitics, or really anything outside of overpriced vegan coffee shops). All they really do is end up getting Fox News people to vote for fascists like Trump out of spite

[autoexec]

> A huge chunk of activism is pointless and annoying.

Activism can be annoying, but it's never pointless (not even when it fails to be effective).

> All they really do is end up getting Fox News people to vote for fascists like Trump out of spite

It wouldn't be worthwhile for activists to resign themselves to inaction out of fear of offending the "Fox news people". "Fox news people" are already more likely than not to vote for fascists like Trump, and they'll use any excuse/justification they're being fed including "I don't like the way the wrong people are using their freedom to protest the wrong things".

[pickleRick243]

I don't think this is really true if you look at the results of the last election. Activism just on the transgender issue alone looks to have swung a lot of votes.

[appreciatorBus]

People on HN are happy to talk about the internal politics of distant nations, so long as the name of the distant nation is Israel or Palestine.

[nonameiguess]

To be clear, this is a Frenchman of Chinese descent advocating for Taiwanese independence and your complaint is about Americans.

[lenerdenator]

> I partially agree, but as a non-US user of the English speaking internet, the issue is with specifically US politics and social issues being everywhere.

I mean, yeah. Most major social media services used in the West are based in the US. The single largest English as a first language population is in the United States.

Given how many users from outside the US are oft wont to opine on our state of affairs even during the good times - often without even being asked - I like to think they'll endure our discourse.

[globalnode]

best solution to this is a closing of borders and fragmentation of the internet to local regional segments. i know it sounds backwards but it seems thats where we're headed

[direwolf20]

We're already there, but not geographically aligned. We talk in isolated forums, mostly on Discord. Big public melting pots like Twitter have failed.

[appreciatorBus]

Not wanting politics on HN, need not imply support of the status quo, or even a lack of interest in politics. It can simply be a different belief about the purpose of online forums.

I read about politics all day long in many different places. My belief that HN should be relatively free of such stories is not because I believe I can detach myself from politics, but because I believe topic based forums are more valuable and useful than “anything goes” forums.

[stackbutterflow]

Allowing politics on HN doesn't mean discussing politics in every thread. If it's a story about someone who improved performance of their system by using Rust then sure there's no need to bring anything political. But threads about Nvidia, Tesla, encryption, internet blackouts, social media, startups investments, etc, all warrants political discourse.

[appreciatorBus]

I wish that were true, but in my experience so far, it isn’t.

Not only does politics and general stories crowd out everything else over time on other sites, there are HN submitters who seem to be trying to accelerate this.

During the war, when HN was getting Israel-Palestine stories constantly, I started looking at the submission history of some of the submitters, and some of them were just pushing these types of stories every day for months and months.

So yes, I think allowing politics will eventually mean being dominated by politics and general interest.

[alighter]

Globalizing the intifada means pushing an agenda everywhere, including on HN, on posts where it is relevant and on posts where some obscure or conspiratorial connection can be made.

If HN is going to allow accusations to be slung against groups of people it has to allow others to respond, and that sets off endless debate amongst people who will not be changing their minds on the matter but will repeat the same argument on the next post.

[appreciatorBus]

Every Israel Palestine story was like that. Just hundreds of back & forth exchanges of fire that could be copy pasted from the last story, along with copious complaints that HN was censoring them even though the story was on the front page. Just a complete waste of time, and very dishonest & unserious people.

[direwolf20]

The use of Rust is already political!

[getnormality]

Nah, it doesn't mean they support the status quo. It just means some political tactics are pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive.

Political opinions about how things should be don't automatically dictate the actions that should be taken in support of those opinions. I can be mad about a law or a court decision and still have the good sense to, for example, not throw red paint on a lawmaker or judge.

Some behaviors just aren't helpful, and neither being right nor being upset changes that.

[da_chicken]

Maybe, but telling people who are speaking to their audience on the platforms that audience is voluntarily visiting that they need to shut up is even more pointless, incompetent, and counterproductive.

Notepad++ is free, open source software for which there are dozens of alternative packages of equivalent quality. The entire cost of using this software and benefiting from the work of the developer, is having to scroll past or close a few political opinions.

If the reaction, if someone vehemently dislikes this sort of thing, is to tell that developer to "just shut up and make your software" rather than to stop using that software? Then I think that's possibly the most entitled and hypocritical position that I think it's possible to have.

[getnormality]

Notepad++ maintainers can do whatever they want. I don't care. I'm just taking apart this tedious, superficial, self-serving activist cliche about how not being an activist is supporting the status quo. Some people want change just as much as activists do, but they have different ideas about when and how it's helpful to be an activist.

[ImPostingOnHN]

It's ok for you to have a different opinion. I'm sure both views are well reasoned. Neither one is "wrong".

[viraptor]

> and still have the good sense to

The good sense is your judgement. At some point a real, direct, disruptive protest is going to be the right solution for a big enough group of people. Peaceful protests are just a "we're starting to get there" signal. It's not like politicians normally say "gee, lots of people don't like how I abuse power, I guess I'll stop now". It's all about being collectively upset enough about status quo.

[popalchemist]

It intrinsically does. Whatever stance changes nothing or prefers to change nothing is a vote for the status quo, by definition.

[defrost]

> Whatever stance changes nothing .. is a vote for the status quo, by definition.

As problematic as the assertion "by definition" is aside, it should be noted that endlessly commenting about politics on internet forums effectively changes nothing.

I've been kettled by mounted officers and hit by high pressure hoses on cold evenings, something that also rarely effects change .. but that's a least a fun night out with people and better than wasting bits on the intertubes.

[popalchemist]

Whether it's a waste is not entirely up to you. There are plenty of people on this forum who are completely naive and live in a bubble. The chance that a comment they see her could make a lightbulb go off is non-zero.

But if I were a nihilist I might agree with you.

[defrost]

So write good comments, neutral in tone, avoid preaching, stick to the facts, gently emphasize how laws are being broken without an excess of righteuosness, see the people whose opinions you oppose and find common ground to pivot to your position, etc.

When last we crossed you appeared to be lecturing people while incorrectly paraphrasing their actual position (aka strawmanning)( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46793399 ).

FWiW I recall handing a guitar (I hear they kill facists) to Billy Bragg way back when he was on tour Talking to the Taxman About Poetry and FYI he's back, again, following Springsteen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IKOW2ZikGW8

So, good luck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ2QOwQdHL8

Maybe sidestep becoming a parody: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1_uEbGJtnY

[popalchemist]

Why should you be the dictator of what tone is appropriate? Particularly when mass murder is involved. Get real.

[bigstrat2003]

No, that isn't remotely true. It means that the alternative you offer isn't compelling, not that your interlocutor likes the status quo.

[popalchemist]

We're talking about the effect of non-action. To not act against a status quo is to enable it. Your feelings don't matter in that equation.

[direwolf20]

I wouldn't say that avoiding political discussion yourself because you can't handle it is a vote for the status quo, but telling others not to talk about politics is definitely a vote for the status quo.

[fc417fc802]

Doesn't that depend entirely on the context? Telling the grocery store not to carry dairy products is an anti-dairy stance. Objecting to dairy products in the vegetable section is not anti-dairy it's pro-keeping-things-organized. Debating whether or not dairy ought to be allowed in the vegetable section is also not anti-dairy, at least in the general case.

[direwolf20]

Unlike milk, politics pervades everything. It's not like keeping milk cartons out of the vegetable section, it's like keeping the letter "p" out of the vegetable section.

[fc417fc802]

You've broken the analogy. The broad categories of food equate to the broad categories of discussion topics.

How attention works, whether training on scraped data is legal, and whether or not the latter should be permissible are three distinct topics. Only the third is inherently political. The second has a close relation to politics but is ultimately a legal question as opposed to a political contest. The first has absolutely nothing to do with politics in and of itself.

> politics pervades everything

That's exactly the problem. Sometimes I don't want it to. If I pull up a spec sheet for a microcontroller I don't want to be bombarded with propaganda pertaining to the political tug of war of the day.

The fact that mundane actions can have political impacts when considered en masse does not imply that we can't or shouldn't have spaces for discussions that are reasonably free of political topics. It isn't always appropriate (imo) to discuss the political impacts of the task at hand. It's okay to have a space in which only the task itself is permitted.

[p_ing]

> Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads

In the context of forums, the political threads are generally /not interesting/[0]. Political threads often devolve; they bring nothing 'new' or 'fresh' to the table, and they lead absolutely no where. It's a fart-in-the-wind situation no matter what your position is. Leave that stuff on reddit where the rest of the farts-in-the-wind go to waste. It's like watching commentators on Fox News or CNN or <insert favorite cable TV show here>. They're a large waste of time and they're often geared towards re-enforcing your side, aka echo chamber.

Now, if a thread actually evolved into real measurable action, that might actually be interesting. But that's not what happens on these forums. There's probably very few of us that see some HN thread talking about something awful happening somewhere and they take direct action, such as petitioning their government, protesting, etc. It's probably happened once or twice, but most of the farts in those threads just hang around and stink up the place.

Please stop stinking up HN.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[mshroyer]

> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view

No, it explicitly is not, and this "deepity" doesn't change any rational analysis. The injection of politics into every aspect of society must and should be refused.

[direwolf20]

Can you name some aspects of society that are non–political? I can't think of many. Maybe the frequency spectrum of sunlight?

[hnuser123456]

Politics is more of a way of thinking and speaking than about any specific topic. For those of us who see a lot of problems with society but know that things will never be how they "should be", it is healthy to limit amount of time spent thinking about problems that cannot and will not be solved.

[akimbostrawman]

please tell me about the intricate politics of a phone booth. just because you can make everything political doesn't mean it is inherently political or doesn't make you look like a terminal online annoying loser when you try to compensate for your vapid personality outside of ideological dogma.

[direwolf20]

Phone booths are made by the phone company to increase the money they make, that's political. Phone booths are made with more or less shielding implying a greater or lesser danger to their occupant, that's politics. The ones at the airport have glass dividers while the ones at the lonely gas station at night are fully enclosed with thick glass. Different ones have different amounts of graffiti and different likelihood of being vandalised at any given time. You will find this correlates with demographics. Phone booths have disappeared as we all got portable phones in our pockets, but those phones also track us and some people might prefer the relative privacy of an impersonal phone booth, but can't because they no longer exist.

[akimbostrawman]

Thank you for providing a example to my comment

[illusive4080]

I disagree. I want to separate my technology from politics. I consume politics through other venues. I don’t want HN full of political articles. It doesn’t mean I support status quo. It means I don’t want this one website pushing politics, which it increasingly does.

HN discussions are usually very high quality and respectful disagreement therein, which is unique online nowadays.

I’ve come here to escape Reddit, which is all politics all the time. If this place turns as political as Reddit, I’m out.

[teo_zero]

> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view

If this is true, I'd like to know what a weak political view is instead!

[direwolf20]

"I think taxes should be 2% higher"

[chii]

> One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is. Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political.

apparently, it's OK to have this stance of "if you're not with us, you're against us".

It's absolutely possible to not want political discussions in various places - it doesn't mean you support one or the other side. It simply means you don't want that discussion here. You could support the incumbents or not - not wanting the discussion does not imply support for the incumbents.

[direwolf20]

it's not the mere lack of being with, it's the enthusiastic, public advertisement that you are not with. If you are actually neither with nor against, then you don't have any need to say anything about the issue at all. If you make a big deal about not being with or against, most people who do that are against but don't want to say so.

[expedition32]

I always imagine how long one can keep ignoring politics? When they bust down your door and put you in the black van?

They are making a mistake I was never political!

[LoganDark]

I don't care for the current status quo at all. The current administration has wrecked this country and completely compromised its position in the global economy potentially forever. But there is a time and a place for those arguments and activism, as well as the same for other parts of the world suffering from similar or worse issues. Like, I wouldn't be receptive to hearing about Ukraine every time I go to the grocery store. When I want to hear about it I go to the YouTube channels documenting it! They're very interesting, but I need to be in a space to receive it. Similarly there are places where I'm not specifically looking for it but where I'd be receptive because it's not immediately irrelevant to something I'm doing. Otherwise it is just noise. This is absolutely no statement about the status quo, but just how my brain works. It's also not a statement against activism in general, just about my personal opinion of it in certain places.

[eloisius]

It’s all well and good for you if you want to be a consumer of political content when it suits you, but for a creator, the creation’s whole purpose may be a delivery mechanism for their message which may otherwise go unheard. Not saying this is necessarily what Don Ho (Notepad++) is doing, but it’s possible. Create something so good that people can’t help but use it (preferably the demographic you most want to reach, for example a country with a huge base of Windows users) and then use it as your message delivery mechanism.

[lelanthran]

Both the points:

1. I don't want to see political messages in unrelated delivery mechanisms

and

2. I created $PRODUCT as a delivery mechanism for a political message

are equally valid.

I feel that the problem that comes about is when a $PRODUCT was not created as a delivery mechanism but is being co-opted into being one at some later stage; the audience feels deceived and the creator feels that the audience is ungrateful.

I'm not very familiar with Notepad++ (having never used it, nor experienced any desire to try it), but I'm fairly certain that the creator has been political long enough now that the audience cannot complain about the message being delivered with the product.

It's like complaining about Vim having a message for the plight of Ugandans - it's been there for decades; too late to complain now about it.

I'm more sympathetic to complaints over projects which never had a specific political message suddenly acquiring one when they realised what a large audience they had, or when new people join a decades-old project and introduce a political message that was never there before. I can sorta understand outrage then.

[direwolf20]

> There is a time and place for activism

Conveniently, it's never here, and it's never now. I think MLK Junior wrote a speech about this? Letter from a Birmingham Jail: https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

[viraptor]

You may not be in the right state, but the point of that part of the website is that it's a donation link. It will drive some people to help. If it's at the cost of some others getting grumpy about too much messaging... that's probably still worth it.

[davorak]

> Otherwise it is just noise. This is absolutely no statement about the status quo, but just how my brain works. It's also not a statement against activism in general, just about my personal opinion of it in certain places.

I considered the majority of the population to be affected by repeated messaging, messages in the background, or in other words availability bias. So the messaging be having the desired effect on society in general but not on some subset who filter it out completely.

[LoganDark]

It has an effect on me too: it makes me begin to extra-quickly ignore any messaging of that sort. I become so tired of it that it starts actively frustrating me to see. And I bother people to take it elsewhere. This is a behavioral issue on my part, but I'm still struggling to justify to myself that they couldn't be getting more out of it by putting it somewhere more appropriate.

[davorak]

> I become so tired of it that it starts actively frustrating me to see.

Something similar, significantly different though, happen to a friend. They started distrusting the incogni.com after seeing their advertisements over and over again. To them they saw/felt/reasoned that only an untrustworthy actor would be pushing the messaging so much and a trustworthy actor would rely more on word of mouth via their good product inspiring people to speak up about them. I had to point out that they probably saw much more of incogni's advertising due to their rate and type of media consumption and most people probably do not get that level of exposure. If incogni lowered their advertisements to hit them correctly it would not be nearly enough advertising to reach the average consumer.

I see the frustration at the repeated messaging to likely be a natural protective mechanism. Instinctively reject repeated messages is not necessarily a bad instinct since manipulative people will use repeated messaging to manipulate, but repeated message exposure does not only happen due to an attempt to manipulate.

[suprstarrd]

I want to start by saying it's good that you are at least taking the time to look for this information! Stay healthily informed.

I see this as a bad analogy though: you wouldn't hear about it every time you go to the grocery store. Or, at the very least, you wouldn't stop and listen for the fifth time. You already know, and that's the point: the intention of most activism in technology (at least that I see) is to make you initially aware of it so you start to seek the information out and learn more elsewhere. (...And to give themselves good PR. We love rainbow capitalism /s)

Instagram and Twitter both get your attention during election season because they want you to be informed about how to vote. To me, that's a similar thing.

[Der_Einzige]

The whole reason why Notepad ++, vim, etc have to do this is because no one wants to take one for the team and protest/put their neck on the line.

I don't want to either, and indeed I really want others to do it for me. As such, I really want to see even MORE political stuff like this to hopefully create folks who will actually protest and put their neck on the line.

Similar reason why US military propaganda is good. I never EVER want to be drafted and indeed if you put a gun in my hand and military fatigues on me, I will die with a shot in the ass (because I am running away). Thankfully, we have a bunch of hardened 20-somethings "manipulated" into joining the military and protecting us so that I can be lazy.

So please ratchet up the politics and get others out so I don't have to. It's not that hard to ignore yet another plea for help. We do it every hour of every day.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

Not wanting politics crammed into every nook and cranny of daily life is not a "political" view of one kind or another, it's a preference for how I want to consume information and interact with people.

There is such a thing as being able to act and think in ways that aren't political in nature. Maybe not for you, but it absolutely is possible.

[anonymous908213]

Way to completely and totally miss the point. I don't actually think you could've missed the point any harder than you did.

Politics are quite literally life-or-death for many people. War is politics. Access to healthcare is politics. Economic policy that determines whether businesses and careers succeed or fail is politics. Freedom to say what you want, believe or not believe in whatever religion you want, and be who you are without being imprisoned is politics. The people who make the most noise about politics are the people who are literally dying for as long as the rest of society ignores their plight.

If this isn't the case for you, it's because you benefit from the status quo. It is the definition of privilege to be able to "ignore politics". That means you are currently benefitting from politics. Of course you don't want to hear about politics, politics are doing just fine for you. And the comment you were asking to was asking you to reflect on that: if the biggest problem gracing you is hearing other people make noise about circumstances, the least you could do is deal with it. Your problems are trivial if that is what gets you upset. Other people are complaining about things that affect the outcome of their lives and you're complaining about... having to hear it.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

That you seem to believe politics exists to solve people's problems is probably the reason you feel it is so important. I'm sorry that you are so profoundly confused.

[anonymous908213]

Oh, you're one of those bootstrappy libertarians, I'm taking it. Everything you've ever done is by your own two merits, right? Nevermind the fact that you take society's roads and use society's technology, which are the results of politics. You drink society's water and eat society's food, which are the results of politics. You enjoy the security of not being invaded by enemy tribes nor your neighbors, which are the results of politics. "Politics" is simply a word describing how humans act in groups. Given that how we act in groups determines the entirety of our lives, there is no separating anything from politics. You seem to have taken my comment as "the government is responsible for solving people's problems", but politics are just as much about dealing with the problems it creates. When politics are going well you can ignore it; when they are going poorly they can end your life so you make a lot of noise about it to get other people to try to care. In either case, though, your life is entirely the result of political forces unless you're living in the jungle completely detached from society.

[tjwebbnorfolk]

I live in a society that feeds me and rewards me for work and does a whole host of other things for me. I am grateful for all of it. Many other people are not so well served by society. This is all true. None of that has anything to do with politics.

Politics is a game. It is played with one single objective: to make sure that the people with no political power remain fighting among themselves instead of fighting those with power. If you believe some favored political faction will solve these problems you mention, then it is you who is missing the entire point.

[anonymous908213]

I'm taking you're from the US from the "either team" comment. That is a really elementary understanding of politics. Politics, again, is a word describing how humans behave in groups. Where are roads built? That's a political decision made by groups of humans reaching consensus. What is the budget for the local security force? That's a political decision made by groups of humans reaching consensus. How much money is going to be collected from everyone locally to pay for those roads and security? That's a political decision made by groups of humans reaching consensus. If you're even allowed to participate in the consensus process... that itself is politics! For most of recorded history, decisions were made by the consensus of clergy, nobility and royalty, who coerced the rest of society into supporting their consensus through organized violence. Are you allowed to own property? That is the result of your group reaching consensus saying you're allowed to.

> How the produce of society is distributed and how people are cared for has zero relevance to an article about hacking a text editor,

The article is political. People make noise about Taiwan because an invasion of Taiwan would kill many and oppress more, in other words because it, like all political matters, is something that determines the course of lives of millions. Even if they are not directly affected, noise about politics escalates as a mechanism for people to protect themselves. When you are at the wrong end of a group that outnumbers you trying to kill you, you will require the aid of others. But will others come to your aid if you were not willing to come to their aid? This is how the concept of a "conscience" and "empathy" evolved -- because they give an evolutionary advantage, of providing for your own survival by ensuring collective survival.

Edit: for posterity, the comment I was replying to mentioned a "belief in either team leading you to the promised land", which has been edited out.

[illiac786]

Fully agree, it’s akin to atheists, they very often are convinced they are not religious. Agnostics are the unreligious ones. In fact, atheists are the most fanatical zealots in my friends circle.

[eunos]

> Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view

We are all Schmittian now

[hulitu]

> Trying to set oneself apart from (or above) politics is itself political.

we are just sick of propaganda. And of pissing contests. And of "mine is longer than yours" content.

[GaryBluto]

I'm tired of this. I look anywhere, I see politics. At the end of the day all this does is alienate me from anything that isn't the status quo anywhere, because all I see of the opposition of it is constant incessant whining and the prevention of my relaxation. It's a selfish view but I don't care.

[stirfish]

Sometimes when the politics deeply affects you, you just need a little break from it.

[direwolf20]

That's fine, it's also different from what was said

[LoganDark]

You can't take a break from that. I have transgender friends who fear for their life every day. They don't know what is going to happen to their rights or their healthcare. I have diabetic friends who can't work and also fear for their life because losing Medicaid would mean they will stop being able to afford insulin and will die. This is what people mean when they talk about politics being important. It's not just things that don't affect you, which is what most people mean when they say they don't care about politics. As soon as something affects you, you will understand.

[jajuuka]

And if all you do all day is worry about someone else's or your own problems and politics you will not survive. Everyone has problems. Every single person has an issue that could cause them to die or a political event that could cause them harm. Your friends are not special or unique. There are billions of people who don't know if they will have food for their next meal, don't have money to pay rent, struggle with an addiction, etc.

It's okay to watch a show about knights and demons and enjoy it. It's okay to use a piece of software that doesn't code every release as a protest against something. Instead of judging other people for not burning out, maybe take a break yourself. It's okay and normal.

[gruez]

>Similar comments also come up in the [now regular] "I don't want to see political articles on HN" threads, and I think the response is similar: Asking for "no politics" is itself a strong political view: One in support/service of whatever the current status quo is.

Before I respond to your comment, allow me first to acknowledge the following injustices happening in the world:

* war in gaza

* war in ukraine

* civil war in sudan

* civil war in yemen

* civil war in myanmar

* ethnic violence in syria

* insurgent attacks in nigeria

* insurgent attacks in congo

* attacks on protesters in Iran

...

Wait, what's that? You don't want every comment to start with some sort of land acknowledgement-esque disclaimer of all injustices happening in the world? What are you, some sort of gaza war/ukraine war/sudanese civil war/ ... sympathizer? Tens, if not hundreds of millions have been affected by the event listed above, so at the very least you can spare a thought for them before discussing about some text editor getting compromised? You might argue acknowledging the war in gaza is beating a dead horse, but do you think the median HN reader has thought about the civil war in myanmar in the past month?

[NuclearPM]

There’s a difference between arguing over the tax rate and ignoring fascism. At a certain point there is nothing more important than “politics”.

[joejoe638]

The issue with making something so universal as software, specifically scientific software political is that it operates in such a broad context that every political statement sooner or later will seem comical outside a very narrow scope.

Your comment is a good example of it; who is dictator? The people who hacked the software or the political pole they support? At what point did they become fascist enough to warrant politicalisation of everything ?

[direwolf20]

If the main problem is that "sooner or later it will seem comical" I don't think this problem is severe enough to justify the number of words that have been written on HN about this topic.

[Aeglaecia]

i dont see how saying "no politics" is similar to asking "why is there political messaging literally everywhere" , do you see how conflating the two is the exact behaviour that the original commenter was trying to discuss ?

[idiotsecant]

Choosing not to engage politically is not a neutral action. Life is politics. The world is full of people that are trying to control your life in a thousand different ways. Choosing to not engage in support or opposition to that control doesn't mean you aren't participating, it means your default position is letting them do what they want.

[iamnothere]

Is choosing to set certain parts of one’s life apart from politics equivalent to “choosing not to engage politically?” If so then shouldn’t every action that you take be imbued with politics, including the choice of how long you brush your teeth and when, where, and how you sleep? Or are certain things exempt from the rule, but not posting on HN? If that’s the case, why does posting on HN require political engagement but not, say, your interactions with the clerk at the grocery store? Are those of us who fail to inform every person we meet about our political views choosing not to engage politically? Even if we dedicate a certain portion of our lives to political engagement?

Edit: I’ll also add that political messaging is highly contextual. What is appropriate and effective in one place may be counterproductive or actively harmful elsewhere. Format and tone actually matter if you care about your pet cause succeeding, believe it or not.

[Fogest]

I think this is a good example you provide about the store clerk at the grocery store, and I think you can expand this even further. Sometimes when I go to a store and am checking out they will ask me to donate to some random charity. Whether or not I care about the cause they are asking for money for doesn't matter at all in that moment. It annoys me and I don't want it to be asked in that interactions as that's not what I'm there for and not what I care to be put on the spot to think about.

I view these kinds of weird virtue signaling political statements on things like software to be the same. They do absolutely nothing and are just visual noise for nothing. Actually, this is a good example of where it can go wrong as it likely made the software the target of Chinese state-sponsored actors. So not only does it serve no useful purpose, it also can make you a target and piss people off.

[davorak]

> Choosing to not engage in support or opposition

I do not think it is uncommon for someone to do this, then see the side they oppose win more in elections, public perception, etc then decide to engage more and that is "why is there political messaging literally everywhere".

Since we can't remove it, the next best alternative is to participate and advocate for responsible political engagement. I think until we have some shared understanding of what responsible political engagement is we will continue to have it everywhere.

[Aeglaecia]

the original commenter has explicitly stated willingness to engage politically , he has also stated this is not something he is willing to do when it is interrupting his seperate personal choices , concluding with an observation that others tend to conflate non-constant political will with a constant apolitical view. can you please explain how you are not conflating these two concepts ?

[joejoe638]

This is about being productive and weighing the overall value of things.

The politicisation of software is as harmful as requiring every research paper to be published with a political allegiance banner.

Software like most Sciences, Engineering, and, Trade is a much longer game for humanity than politics de jour.

It is easy to forget the extent of contributions from all sides of politics that has contributed to this trade, from Mohammed Algorithm to English, Russian, Chinese, and, everyone else to computing; but forgetting that and forging that for quick political hack points is a disservice to humanity.

[pixl97]

>Software like most Sciences, Engineering, and Trade are much longer game for humanity than politics de jour.

Not really, software, like sciences and engineering must survive politics first. If humans start tossing around nukes like angry apes then those that survive may be scratching simple arithmetic with a charcoal stick on a cave wall.

[joejoe638]

This take is completely blind to how sciences has worked throughout history of humanity and specifically post major world wars.

Additionally, it is based on a false notion that political banners in software helps in pursuing anyone let alone change political outcomes.

[deathanatos]

Science has absolutely engaged in the politics du jour, including in major world wars. See, for example, the Szilárd petition[1]. (If you need a post-WWII example, those same scientists continued petitioning after the war on the dangers of nukes, too.)

Further, political banners in software have absolute helped, and have changed political outcomes. As an example of that, SOPA, and later PIPA, were defeated by websites such as Wikipedia (which are software) putting banners aimed at informing the public of those bills.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szil%C3%A1rd_petition

[joejoe638]

A petition and including your political opinions whenever you engage in your trade or profession is not the same.

This is the entire point and objection with politicisation of everything.

[Orygin]

> whenever you engage in your trade or profession is not the same

Feels like this is overstating the facts. Afaik, twice did the author on N++ did include a small political message in a release.

Is it really "whenever"? Blowing this out of proportions because some are so allergic to any political message that twice in 10 years is being pushy..

In the end, everything involving more than 2 humans is politics. You may want to ignore some topics, but those may be important to others. Until the day you yourself want to bring some attention but you're met with an "apolitical" response saying it's not the time or place for it.