[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.

[autoexec]

> Activism just on the transgender issue alone looks to have swung a lot of votes.

What activism was that? Were there sit-ins? Millions marching in the streets? Were trans people chaining themselves to bathrooms? What was the terrible activism so extreme that it pushed "fox news people" into voting for an R when they'd normally vote for a D? My guess is that there are effectively 0 "fox news people" who'd ever vote for a D to start with and that fox news watchers didn't actually see or experience much activism on the transgender issue. Instead what they mostly had a problem with was policy put in place by non-transgendered people, library books that included transgender characters, and the existence of trans people generally. No activism needed.

[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.