[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.

[direwolf20]

The spec sheet being written in English is politics. The spec sheets of the most advanced microcontrollers, the cheapest microcontrollers, and the most widely used microcontrollers are exclusively written in Chinese. You don't have easy access to them. That's also politics.

Microcontroller is a broad category of electronic components. Maximum I/O current is orthogonal to microcontroller. Spec language is orthogonal to microcontroller. Politics is orthogonal to microcontroller, and orthogonal to maximum I/O current. The letter "x" is orthogonal to all of the above.

If we make a category of microcontrollers with French data sheets, we are intersecting two axes. That's analogous to vegetables that contain saturated fat or vegetables that begin with the letter "a" in Flemish.

Saturated fats pervade foods (but not all of them), the Flemish letter "a" pervades foods (but only 1/26 of them), electrical concepts pervade microcontroller spec sheets (all microcontrollers, but not all documents describing them) and politics pervades everything (some exceptions here too?)

[fc417fc802]

> are exclusively written in Chinese. You don't have easy access to them. That's also politics.

We definitely do not agree on that point. I mean sure, I can imagine a scenario where a company chooses not to publish in a particular language for a political reason. But I do not believe that is typically the case.

If I pull up a Japanese ActivityPub node and notice that the people there are posting in Japanese (not English!) is that political? I don't see how. They're using the language that is convenient for them in that context. So too a Chinese outfit publishing documentation in Chinese for a chip they only ever intended to sell domestically. Or perhaps they fully intended to export it but decided to cut costs by not bothering to translate the documentation. Cutting costs is a universal pressure that transcends all boundaries. Working in one's native language doesn't seem even remotely politically charged to me.

> If we make a category of microcontrollers with French data sheets, we are intersecting two axes. That's analogous to vegetables that contain saturated fat or vegetables that begin with the letter "a" in Flemish.

The point of my original analogy (that I feel still stands) is that wanting to categorize something for some purpose is not necessarily political in nature. Sure, it could be motivated by such. But it doesn't have to be. Perhaps you have a legitimate reason to want to sort your vegetables by fat content. It doesn't have to be political (though it certainly can be).

It follows that me not wanting political conversations in a certain venue is not necessarily a politically motivated position in and of itself. It could be (my intention could be to manipulate the discourse for a political purpose) but it doesn't have to be.

> politics pervades everything (some exceptions here too?)

Politics influence the vast majority of human activity almost by definition. It doesn't follow that everything is political. Words are intended to mean things. If "everything is A" then what is the point of A as a category? Obviously categories are only useful to the extent that they exclude things.

[direwolf20]

How do you define "politics"?